Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen catches Jasmine as husband Hal’s finances collapse and she moves in with her sister Ginger in San Francisco. Production notes say both women were adopted, from different parents, and the love in that house went to Jasmine. The name is not hers by birth: she was Jeanette until Hal arrived. The flashbacks are not backstory, they compete with the present. Jasmine enters her sister’s cramped flat and the film cuts to her alone in a huge empty Fifth Avenue apartment. Blanchett wishes the New York scenes had been shot first, where she says she understood the woman. There is no postcard city here either: the Golden Gate Bridge gets one glance from a Marin hilltop. Cate Blanchett won the Academy Award for actress in a leading role. Sally Hawkins was nominated in supporting actress and Allen in original screenplay; neither won. Blanchett had played Blanche DuBois for the Sydney Theatre Company under Liv Ullmann. The film never opened in India: Allen refused the warning text local rules require over smoking scenes, so PVR cancelled it. A good fit if you want to watch someone assemble a lie in front of you and read a self chosen name as the whole character. Not for viewers expecting postcard San Francisco; the camera stays at the checkout aisle.