After experiencing a traumatic misfortune, Jasmine French, a wealthy woman from New York, moves to San Francisco to live with her foster sister Ginger and the firm purpose of getting a new life, but she will be haunted by anxiety and memories of the past.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.6/10
IMDb: 7.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.68/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Metacritic: 78
TMDB: 7.0/10
Director
Woody Allen
Production
Gravier Productions, Perdido Productions
Cast
Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, Peter Sarsgaard, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Louis C.K., Michael Stuhlbarg, Alden Ehrenreich, Joy Carlin, Richard Conti, Glen Caspillo, Charlie Tahan, Annie McNamara, Daniel Jenks, Max Rutherford, Tammy Blanchard, Kathy Tong, Ted Neustadt, Andrew Long
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, tragicomic character study anchored by one of Cate Blanchett’s most formidable performances. It’s especially rewarding if you like brittle social satire, emotional unraveling, and stories where denial and self-mythology slowly collapse.
Best for
performance-driven dramas
dark character studies
stories about class and reinvention
viewers who like tragicomic tone
fans of psychological breakdown narratives
Skip if
you want a warm or uplifting redemption arc
you dislike morally messy protagonists
you’re sensitive to Woody Allen’s filmmaking reputation
you prefer plot-heavy dramas over character portraits
Overview
Blue Jasmine is less interested in plot than in pressure: the pressure of class loss, self-deception, and a life built on lies finally giving way. Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine as a woman in permanent freefall, alternating between brittle elegance and raw panic, and the film is at its best when it lets her contradictions stay unresolved.
Worth noting
The movie works as both social comedy and emotional autopsy. Its San Francisco setting sharpens the contrast between Jasmine’s old-money fantasies and the ordinary, compromised lives around her, especially Sally Hawkins’ grounded, forgiving Ginger. That imbalance gives the film its tension: one sister survives by adapting, the other by performing.
Bottom line
It can feel cold and schematic in places, and the ending may frustrate viewers who want catharsis. But as a showcase for performance and a study of collapse, it’s unusually potent, with a nasty comic edge that keeps the tragedy from becoming merely bleak.
Top Letterboxd reviews
#1 gizmo fan (4.5★) · 4008 likes
men are garbage directed by the garbage man
maria (3.5★) · 1637 likes
tag yourself, i'm cate blanchett's nervous breakdown
Erik 🎼 (4.5★) · 1145 likes
in a similar vein to “gone girling yourself” i’m proposing “blue jasmineing yourself” where you go to parties and extensively lie about your life until someone tries to marry you and you have a nervous breakdown, chugging vodka. sally hawkins is there.
georgina (3.5★) · 887 likes
cate blanchett is a blessing and woody allen can choke
cinéfila... 🕯️ (4★) · 756 likes
im all the pills cate blanchett took during this movie
2013 · Drama · 2h 22m · Curator 8.9/10 (259.6K ratings) · Where to watch: Max
A lush study of disillusionment and social performance, with a strong sense of aging, regret, and self-invention.
Topics
psychological drama, tragicomedy, class divide, female protagonist, mental unraveling, family conflict, social satire, emotional breakdown, 2010s drama