Blue Jasmine

Directed by Woody Allen.

2013. Rated PG-13, 98 minutes.

Cast:

Cate Blanchett

Alec Baldwin

Sally Hawkins

Bobby Cannavale

Andrew Dice Clay

Peter Sarsgaard

Louis C.K.

Michael Stuhlbarg

Max Casella

Alden Ehrenreich

Jasmine (Blanchett) is no longer with her husband Hal (Baldwin), but can't stop going on about all the wonderful things they used to do together to anyone within earshot. It turns out they were once fabulously wealthy. Her days were spent having expensive lunches with her friends and planning charity events. Circumstances I won't spoil forced them apart and put her in the poor house. With nowhere else to go, and having to start over, Jasmine takes what money she has and flies to San Francisco to stay with her sister Ginger (Hawkings) who has a couple of young sons and is on the verge of having her fiance Chili (Cannavale) move in with her. To say all of this is a shock to her system is putting it mildly. Jasmine trying to put the pieces of her life back together while flashing back to what once was ensues.

Two things jump out at you as outstanding aspects of this film. The first is Cate Blanchett's performance in the titular role. She dazzles with her portrayal of a woman frayed at the edges, and with full knowledge of that, resolutely clinging to her self-righteousness. She's in touch with the reality of her situation, but not entirely sure how reality works. It's a complicated act akin to juggling chainsaws. One false move would mean certain death for her believability. Fortunately, each time she tosses a saw in the air she manages to catch it safely by the handle.

The other great aspect of this movie shines through Blanchett's performance. She makes it easy to recognize how well written Blue Jasmine is. Even during her least stable moments, it doesn't seem showy. It feels like a person having a difficult time coping, not an actor trying to impress the academy. Of course, that's exactly what she did and took home Oscar gold. A large part of that was the dialogue she and everyone else was given. From her, when talking to others, it is a constant stream of needling insults. No one thing she says could incite a riot, but her ever growing verbal combinations drives others insane. This is why the people around her blow up in her face from time to time, and take great joy in doing so. Her holier than thou attitude and complete stand-offishness gives them gless during the various moments in which she receives her comeuppance. When speaking to herself, whether others are present or not, she goes on strangely coherent rambles. By that, I mean what she's saying makes complete sense it just just lacks context to whoever is in her midst. They can easily figure out what she's talking about. They just won't be able to understand why. Writer/director Woody Allen pulls this off brilliantly. He puts his protagonist in a world where she can have control of her surroundings even as she is losing control of her life. If something is not about her, she makes it that way. The question is whether or not she can fix any of it.

It would be tough to sell a movie with one great performance and not much else going for it as worth the bother. Fortunately, I've already mentioned Allen's writing. His directing deserves credit here, as well. He shoots scenes with the appropriate intimacy or distance depending on what's happening with Jasmine. Whenever she's trying to separate herself from a situation, she's off to one side, almost detached from whatever is happening. When others are probing her for answers to personal questions they get close-up, putting them in our face to suggest that they're also in hers. It's a bunch of subtle touches that come together to form our picture.

To help this picture take shape, others in the cast also perform very well. Alec Baldwin is perfectly slimy as Jasmine's beloved Hal. Bobby Cannavale sweats his way through an excellent portrayal of a guy who is happy with his station in life and whiny when things don't go his way. Sally Hawkins does well as the smarter-than-given-credit-for Ginger. However, I'd be lying if I didn't say I thought Sarah Silverman might have stolen the show with this role. For me, the one weak link is a guy who received tons of prais for his work, here. That's Andrew Dice Clay. It's not that he was necessarily bad, just terribly miscast. An integral part of his character, Ginger's ex-husband Augie, is being a San Francisco guy not used to swimming with the financial sharks of New York. In fact, he's never even been to the city. It comes off as the most artificial part of the movie because whenever he opens his mouth, that unmistakable Brooklyn accent comes flying out of it. It was utterly impossible for him to sound more like a native New Yorker.

That small misstep aside, Allen has crafted a wonderful film. The dialogue is sharp and the camera is very purposely placed throughout. Both of these things add the finishing touches on an already sizzling story. Being a Woody Allen script, there is humor, for sure. However, it's of a darker variety than his usual fare. Helping it get that way is Cate Blanchett, standing in for Woody himself. She takes his normally neurotic and longing for love protagonist and adds a layer of growing instability and denial. Idiosyncrasies are no longer the joke, but symptoms of more serious problems. That this is going on within a person who has a huge ego only complicates things. By the end, Allen impresses by offering no easy explanations. He presents us with a set of events and asks us to draw our own conclusions. Yup, I'm a sucker for well done ambiguous endings. For my money, this is the best Woody Allen movie at least since Vicky Cristina Barcelona and possibly as far back as Match Point.

American Hustle

Directed by David O. Russell.

2013. Rated R, 138 minutes.

Cast:

Christian Bale

Amy Adams

Bradley Cooper

Jennifer Lawrence

Jeremy Renner

Robert De Niro

Louis C.K.

Michael Pena

Shea Whigham

Elisabeth Rohm

Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and his girlfriend (Sydney Prosser) are a successful pair of con artists with their hands in a few different pots. They're ripping fools off and keeping them on a string all while enjoying each other's company. Life is good. Things change when they get busted by ambitious FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Cooper). After applying some pressure, Richie tells the couple they can get off cleanly if they agree to help him make four more arrests. The problem in everyone's eyes except Richie's is that the targets get increasingly larger in profile and difficulty to ensnare. Complicating things even furhter is Irving's wife Rosalyn (Lawrence). She won't let her husband go even though it's obvious he no longer wants to be married, at least to her. She's also on the unstable side. Her unpredictability threatens to bring down the whole operation.

As he has in the past, director David O. Russell proves to be extremely adept at not only telling his story almost completely through dialogue, but having it remain entertaining all the way through. In a great many films, the words people are saying are merely perfunctory. Characters say enough to advance the plot. The trick Russell pulls is that in addition to propelling our story, these people seem to be living and dying with each conversation. It's something he used to great effect in Silver Linings Playbook. Here, he may have one upped himself. In SLP, the characters merely believed their lives were hanging in the balance as they spilled their guts. To an extent, they were as we were dealing with a number of people with fragile psyches. In American Hustle, that extent reaches the literal level. There is a real chance the our heroes will turn up dead as a result of one conversation or another.

To make all that talking work, Russell needs the help of his magnificent cast. The ensemble delivers and then some. Much of the hype surrounding this movie's performances focused on the work of the two ladies we see most: Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence. Both are tremendous and more than earned their Oscar nominations. Adams continues a recent stretch of excellent performances that started with her turn in The Master and even includes her underrated work in Man of Steel. This time, she shows us a woman who is smart, despite some of her own decisions. She's in love with a guy that she recognizes she can never fully have if she continues to stay with him the way things are. She also know she can't reach the heights she aspires to without him. Meanwhile, Lawrence gives us another phenomenal portrayal of a woman with questionable sanity. When this past awards season rolled around I started to read and hear a lot of moaning and groaning about the love Lawrence was getting. Most accused the Academy of favoritism, or just giving her a nod because she's a popular and highly bankable actress. I think she was legitimately outstanding. She shared scenes with Adams, Cooper, and most often, Bale, and each time she was the most captivating person on the screen.

None of this is to suggest that the men were not good. As a group, they were just as good as the ladies, if not better due to sheer quantity. Bradley Cooper continues to distance himself from being just a pretty face. The fact that we can feel his character's ambition jumping off the screen earned him an Oscar nomination, too. Also continuing is David O. Russell's resurrection of Rober De Niro. For the first time since the 1990s, we get a totally scary Bobby D. He only gets a few minutes of screen time, but it is an intense pocket of time. On the opposite end of the spectrum is comedian Louis C.K. as Cooper's boss. It's a wonderful comic relief role that he pulls off without doing anything that would qualify as zany. Between DeNiro and C.K. is a perfect Jeremy Renner as Mayor Carmine Polito. Everything about him feels exactly right.

Then there's Christian Bale. He once again throw his entire body into his work, physically transforming into the person he's playing. Lots of actors, some excellent ones included, simply play themselves in multiple movies. This isn't the case with Bale. Trevor Reznik (The Machinist), Dicky Eklund (The Fighter), and Bruce Wayne (The Dark Knight Trilogy) all share a similar face, but are very clearly different men. Bale completely disappears into his characters and Irving Rosenfeld is no exception. It yet another impressive turn by an amazing actor.

The larger plot, the one about trying to make the busts, is really of secondary importance to our enjoyment of American Hustle. It's an interesting tale that provides some tense moments, but it isn't what compels us to watch. The dynamics between the various characters is what does this. How these people interact and feel, or don't feel, for each other keeps us engaged. Whether or not any of them is someone we like is debatable. What is not open for discussion is that these are magnetic personas. We struggle to peel our eyes away from any of them. We can also see each of their points of view. This helps us understand their motivations. Armed with this knowledge, we can easily empathize with them as their various objectives seem to get further away. Propelled by an amazing cast and enhanced by sure direction, American Hustle is a very enjoyable experience.

The Invention of Lying

Directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson.
2009. Rated PG-13, 99 minutes.
Cast:
Ricky Gervais
Jennifer Garner
Jonah Hill
Rob Lowe
Louis C.K.
Jeffrey Tambor
Fionulla Flanagan
Tina Fey
Edward Norton

Plot: In a world where man has never developed the ability to lie, Mark Bellison (Gervais) suddenly does.

The Good: The first two acts of the movie are incredibly original. In addition to being brutally honest, every person is also way too forthcoming with unsolicited information. The result is deliciously over the top dialogue during some hilarious exchanges. It also has fun pointing out the mixed messages of religion. Through this, which is essentially the invention of theism (or atheism?) and the aforementioned exchanges, the writing is top notch. There are also two very strong cameos. Jonah Hill’s turn as Mark’s suicidal neighbor is morbidly funny. As Mark’s secretary, Tina Fey absolutely steals every scene she’s in.

The Bad: The third act is dreadfully predictable. It eschews everything that made the earlier parts of the movie such a joy, in favor of recycling the same crap we’ve seen in countless other romantic comedies. We switch from watching a sharp, innovative comedy to a run-of-the-mill chick-flick. Let me tell you: it’s quite the letdown to go from one to the other.

The Ugly: Moses’ tablets are replaced by pizza boxes.

Recommendation: Again, the first two-thirds of the movie are more than enough to make this worth a look. It’s sort of a flip side to Liar Liar and works terrifically. Who knows? You might even like the last twenty or thirty minutes more than I did.

The Opposite View: Kyle Smith, New York Post

What the Internet Says: 6.5/10 on imdb.com (5/20/10), 57% on rottentomatoes.com, 58/100 on metacritic.com


MY SCORE: 7/10