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"&lt;p&gt;Want to see great acting, from comic to tragic and every electrifying stop in between? See Cate Blanchett in &lt;em&gt;Blue Jasmine&lt;/em&gt;. Woody Allen, in rare form, puts Blanchett front and center in this &lt;em&gt;hommage&lt;/em&gt; to Tennessee Williams&amp;apos; &lt;em&gt;A Streetcar Named Desire&lt;/em&gt;, spinning hilarious but mostly harsh truths about love in the time of financial cholera. That&amp;apos;d be now.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blanchett plays Jasmine, who fancies herself the glamorous type, much like Blanche DuBois in &lt;em&gt;Streetcar&lt;/em&gt;. Jasmine is married to Hal (Alec Baldwin), a Bernie Madoff-like financier who puts Jasmine in two chic pumpkin shells, one on Park Avenue, the other in the Hamptons, places where she&amp;apos;s morally blind to his misdeeds. Until, well, she isn&amp;apos;t blind anymore.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Talking to herself and gobbling Xanax with a vodka chaser, Jasmine is melting down. She flees to the cramped San Francisco apartment of Ginger (Sally Hawkins is the definition of wonderful), the adopted sister Jasmine had dismissed as a loser.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;a class=\"inStoryLink\" href=\"http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/andrew-dice-clay-i-never-set-out-to-be-a-comedian-20130725\"&gt;After &lt;em&gt;Blue Jasmine&lt;/em&gt;, Andrew Dice Clay Looking for More Acting Challenges&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Allen deftly uses flashbacks to fill us in on the backstories. Remember Stanley Kowalski, the crude cave man Marlon Brando created in &lt;em&gt;Streetcar&lt;/em&gt;? Ginger has two of them. First is Augie (a shockingly e\u001Dffective Andrew Dice Clay), Ginger&amp;apos;s ex-husband and father of her two sons. Then there&amp;apos;s Chili (the ever-superb Bobby Cannavale), her new boyfriend cut from the animal mold. In &lt;em&gt;Streetcar&lt;/em&gt;, Blanche tells her sister, &amp;quot;Don&amp;apos;t hang back with the brutes.&amp;quot; Jasmine doesn&amp;apos;t utter those words. She doesn&amp;apos;t have to: Blanchett&amp;apos;s eyes say it all. Both women look for a savior. Ginger dates up with the seemingly sympathetic Al (Louis C.K., nailing every nuance). Jasmine reaches out to Dwight (the excellent Peter Sarsgaard), a diplomat with a political agenda for which Jasmine is well suited &amp;#x2013; until her past looms. Allen sends out each laugh about money and class with a sting in its tail.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Blanchett, who has played Blanche in &lt;em&gt;Streetcar&lt;/em&gt; onstage, is the film&amp;apos;s glory. She is miraculous at finding the bruised heart of this bullying elitist. If her struggle doesn&amp;apos;t win respect, it does earn our empathy. The sight of Jasmine &amp;#x2013; lost, alone and unable to conjure magic out of unyielding reality &amp;#x2013; is devastating. This is Blanchett triumphant, and not to be missed.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/blue-jasmine-20130725>