Extra Cinema: Blue Jasmine (12A)

Director: Woody Allen
Undated Film Still Handout from Blue Jasmine. Pictured: KATE BLANCHETT as Jasmine and ALEC BALDWIN as Hal. See PA Feature FILM Film Reviews. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/Warner Brothers. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FILM Film Reviews.Undated Film Still Handout from Blue Jasmine. Pictured: KATE BLANCHETT as Jasmine and ALEC BALDWIN as Hal. See PA Feature FILM Film Reviews. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/Warner Brothers. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FILM Film Reviews.
Undated Film Still Handout from Blue Jasmine. Pictured: KATE BLANCHETT as Jasmine and ALEC BALDWIN as Hal. See PA Feature FILM Film Reviews. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/Warner Brothers. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FILM Film Reviews.

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Aled Baldwin

CATE Blanchett is strongly tipped to receive her sixth Oscar nomination for her tour-de-force portrayal of a cuckolded wife in this emotionally-wrought comedy drama.

The Australian’s in almost every frame of Woody Allen’s entertaining film, delivering his zinging dialogue with split-second timing and reducing herself to a blubbering wreck as her heroine’s privileged life in New York crumbles after her husband is arrested for his dodgy business dealings.

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In fragmented flashbacks, we meet Jasmine (Blanchett) during happier times married to businessman Hal (Alec Baldwin).

She has little time for her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) or then-brother-in-law Augie (Andrew Dice Clay), who foolishly invest their lottery winnings in one of Hal’s bogus property investment schemes.

When Hal’s exposed as a crook, all of Jasmine’s assets are seized and she is forced to head to San Francisco and move into divorcee Ginger’s modest apartment.

Things start looking up when she meets a handsome diplomat called Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), who has excellent prospects, heralding a turnaround in fortunes for the self-obsessed neurotic socialite.

Distinguished by Blanchett’s raw and bleakly funny performance, Blue Jasmine is one of Allen’s best films on US soil for some time.