In “Blue Jasmine” and
“Philomena,” Best Actress Oscar nominees Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench respectively play very
different women in life-altering upheavals. Tip of the hat to Ms. Blanchett as
best of the duo.
In Woody Allen’s pitch black satire/drama “Jasmine,” Blanchett
is a NYC high-society Wall Street wife who sees her diamond dreams bust after hubby
(Alec Baldwin) is jailed Madoff style by the FBI, and his womanizing ways
uncovered.
A high chip even among the 1 percent, Jasmine – not her given name –
crashes to earth and the San Francisco apartment of her sister (Sally Hawkins),
who bags groceries for a living and squeaks by with a mechanic boyfriend (Bobby
Canavale) and a handyman ex-husband (Andrew Dice Clay) with a righteous -- and
rightful -- ax to grind.
Jasmine, on her way down, suffered a nervous breakdown
and now drifts off, pops pills, and cries over the indignity of a paycheck.
Allen – working on multiple levels – shows a woman who has lost her grasp of
reality and yet has always been deep down delusional and a chronic liar, faking
her way up to Park Avenue, and perfectly fine with the deceit and lies of Wall
Street, as long as she herself remains untouched.
How very Ayn Rand.
That the
lower end of America offers no more comfort seems to break Jasmine. (With all
of Allen’s own contradictions, one wonders if he’s ever turned such a cutting
knife on himself. I can’t say.)
This is solid, darkly funny work from the man who
gave us the sweet trippy “Midnight in Paris.” The man writes marvelous women, and
truly scummy men –- Baldwin is wretchedly conceited, and I mean that as a
compliment.
Dench plays the title character in “Philomena,” a woman devout to
God, but carrying a life of heartbreak after the Irish Catholic Church damned her
for having an out of wedlock baby as a teenager, and giving -– selling for cash –- that
baby 50 years ago. (If she aborted, then what?)
Philomena desperately wants to
see that grown son, and worries he is sick or homeless. An out-of-work
journalist turned government PR hack (Steve Coogan, who co-wrote the
screenplay) takes on Philomena as a snide expose to bust the Vatican, which as
a left-wing atheist snob, he loathes.
Philomena, for her part, is near a mirror of the sister in “Jasmine,” scrapping by, prone to junk TV and books. Not a 1 percenter. Conversely, one
could easily see Jasmine hitch onto Coogan’s vulgarly rich writer.
Director
Stephen Fears sends the duo to America, where the son was taken decades ago and
lets the old lady and the uppity writer needle each other movie style. The result
is cute and fuzzy: Philomena talks endlessly, journo rolls his eyes; she won’t
open the hotel door, he panics.
But it’s a solid true-story that, yes, rips the
church and GOP anti-everything conservatism -– justly so -– but also shows that life can be enriched
by forgiveness more so than wealth or talent. Whether you go for God or not. Dench
is amazing. Right and left busted, church faithful and not, as well. Fair game.
Jasmine: A- Philomena: B+
