Blue Jasmine (2013, Woody Allen)

Woody Allen's prolific career can be described as illustrious in the true meaning of the word; his work, which arguably peaked with 1989's Crimes & Misdemeanours, has since had many highs and lows and subsequently saw Allen taken for granted as an artist. Despite commercial and artistic reward from some recent outings, his newest feels like a grand reminder that the writer/director can truly still pull heavy punches. With an intricate, absorbing central performance from Cate Blanchett, Allen's newest offers the impressive gravitas of early dramas Interiors and Another Woman.

From riches to rags, recovering ex-millionairess Jasmine (Blanchett) must rely on her San Francisco based sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), the sister she's pushed away for many years. A fish out of water scenario and a comedy of manners verging on the satiric are quickly established, helped largely by Jasmine's hilarious introduction that delivers all the vitals of this complicated lady of leisure with expert economy. Economy is certainly a word, or rather a theme, at the heart of the film; a look from the penthouse and the cost to the working classes by those at the top who “look the other way”, whose excesses and detachment from real life eventually crumbles from the inside with collateral damage in tow.

The assured construction of Blue Jasmine has much to do with its success. Flitting back and forth between moments of Jasmine tragically coping with supporting herself for the first time in her adult life, to the extravagance of her former life supplied by former husband (Alec Baldwin). The scenes are expertly paired and edited, giving way to the question of just how much Jasmine has been a victim of others, or herself? The answer is unarguably both and the usually diligent Blanchett pulls of the near impossible by making a repulsive character compelling and in her growing delusion (how much of these cutaway scenes are from her subjective viewpoint?) sincerely pained. We may not be able to entirely empathise with Jasmine's predicament, but her torment is so convincingly played out we're instantly invited to invest in the snobbish monster. 

The film brilliantly plays knock-about with our emotions, too, as Jasmine is forced to socialise with her sister's boyfriend and his cronies we're invited to laugh along with her condescending expressions and half-uttered remarks while in a second snapping us back to a defensive stance as she is then challenged by these working class men. This is of course a major accomplishment of Allen's writing but it's in the fine performance's of the supporting cast, most evidently in Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Dice Clay as Ginger's would be suitors. At moments stupid and misjudged, they create endearing men of beautiful simplicity and cut through Jasmine's view of them as aberrant apes.

For a director who indulges frequently with ensemble casts and/or takes the limelight himself as an actor, it's refreshing here that the focus is so consistently on a performer of such an unmatchable calibre. Blanchett, like the film itself, is one minute humorous and easy to laugh at/with but without warning baring teeth. Her presence is magnetic yet erratic, repulsive and still unshakably watchable. And let's not forget about Sally Hawkins who is nearly unrecognisable for similar reasons described of Cannavale et el; she is both world-worn while retaining a childlike naiveté. Naiveté unfortunately intensified by her sister's presence.

Woody Allen has delivered some solid work over the past 20 years, a highly mixed bag but with some certain gems for sure. Despite its pleasures, Midnight in Paris - a film I admire very much - in the wake of this offering feels (like other recent work) like he could have written it in his sleep. Whereas Allen has been dangerously guilty of recycling past ideas there is something reinvigorating about Blue Jasmine; it can be felt in the dedicated central performance, in every performance surrounding it, in the confident writing. Javier Aguirresarobe's camerawork gives a certain zest as if fuelled by the confidents of what lies before his lens.

If the last 10 or so years has seen Woody Allen writing a series of novellas, with the weight and form of Blue Jasmine it seems he's arrived at another novel. 

Hanna (2011, Joe Wright)

The titular character played by Saoirse Ronan is introduced as a hunter, a killer, a girl possessing strength and intricate skill beyond her 16years. Her father Erik (Eric Bana) is the cause for these impressive survival skills; he has trained her to deal with any situation, to fight or think her way out of any corner she may find herself in. The father and daughter live alone in snow-capped rural Finland, seemingly hundreds of miles away from civilisation in every direction. They hunt, cook, learn, and fight together in and around their wooden lodge. One day Erik presents Hanna with a red button, he reminds her that when she's ready, when she thinks she's prepared,  that she may press the button. He also reminds her that when this occurs there is no going back. This already abstract and disorientating introduction is further heightened when Erik informs Hanna that when said button is activated, a woman (unknown to us at this point) will not stop until she is dead. Of course it's not too long before this mysterious button is pressed and all hell breaks loose. For the sake of the film's content, spoilers will be kept to an absolute minimum as its unfolding mystery is the fuel that just keeps Hanna going.

Hanna and Erik go their separate ways and are hunted down for unknown reasons by villainous CIA task master Cate Blanchett. As Hanna is reprimanded and escapes, keeping only just ahead of her pursuers, we witness the world through her eyes for the first time as she finds things that we take for granted (such as a kettle or television) as threatening. She ends up being under the wing of a British liberalist family traveling through Morocco, she befriends the group's shallow teenage daughter who teaches Hanna about boys and makeup and all the things that Erik filtered out on behalf of her survival, while the parents (played by Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng) preach about how children need freedom of expression. It's in this meeting that the film's voice starts to be heard, though it's soon muted through the offensive under-use of both Williams and Flemyng. 


As the film develops it gradually becomes more and more surrealistic and ends up mirroring a Grimm fairy tale, the film has many references to the Grimm Brother's work throughout - most strikingly Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White. As the hunters tracking both Hanna and Erik gradually move closer, dormant secrets are gradually unearthed revealing a dark past kept hidden and the reasons behind Hanna's strange existence.


Hanna marks a turning point for director Joe Wright, who has given us luscious period dramas Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Atonement (2007) in the past. Here he takes on the action genre for the first time, and while it must be applauded on some level for Wright trying new things, it's painfully obvious how his sensibilities and strengths as a director simply don't mesh with the material. Hanna is a film that demands a consistent pace, an intense feeling of forward motion, but only when the film slows down does it ever feel comfortable. When a fast edited fight or chase sequence occurs it feels awkward and strangely at odds with itself, even the mightily impressive score by The Chemical Brothers feels out of place and jarring when it hits loud and fast to accompanying such scenes. When, however, the film slows down, we see the film's most impactive moments. Wright has become famous for his complicated long takes, at the film's centre is a set piece which is just as (if not more so) impressive as the infamous bathhouse fight in David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007). We follow Erik as he exits a bus, walks across a street, and enters an underground tube station before being attacked from all sides, all in a single breathless take. The choreography is masterful in every regard and further reminds why Wright gets such praise as a technical craftsman.

The film's pathos is an interesting one as it examines parent-child relationships. Though Hanna far from represents the average teenage girl, the film expresses a fear from both child and parent perspectives about facing the world. To the young, the world is a vast mystery that must be explored and tested no matter what the danger to define oneself. From the older perspective, the parent has seen the horrors of the world and has perhaps been worn down through them, they must protect and prepare their child for life, but can a parent ever truly prepare? After all, we need space to grow, we must face trials and fail in order to evolve. As father Erik says to his daughter, "I tried to prepare you", "you didn't prepare me for this", she replies.


Unfortunately this pathos is more interesting than the film's attempt at exploring it. Even though Hanna has ambitions and rises far above average mainstream fare, it fails to reach the heights of these ambitions. It's an exciting enough experience as the offbeat, oddball nature gives it a directionless quality that retains interest and suspense. In the end however, when the final line is uttered, in retrospect Hanna ends up being entirely directionless as a result of this and not nearly as interesting as it could have been.

Hanna delivers some fantastic images, some masterful segments, and an interesting meditation on parenting, but the sum of its parts don't amount to much in the end. Hanna should be the kind of big budget Hollywood thriller that we all want; a film that delivers thrills, action and suspense, along with rounded characters, humour, and heightened ideas to boot. With a cast this good and a concept this enticing it's sad to say that Hanna is neither a profound movie of ideas or a slick action thriller, while desperately trying to be both.