Starring: Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alex Baldwin, Andrew Dice Clay, Bobby Cannavale
Director: Woody Allen
Running Time: 98 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: February 17th 2014

A couple of weeks ago Cate Blanchett looked like a shoe-in for the Best Actress Oscar, although that’s been thrown in the air in the fallout from Dylan Farrow’s renewed accusations against Woody Allen, which specifically called out Blanchett for working with him. However while the Allen issues are troubling, Cate’s performance is magnificent and deserving of an Academy Award.

She is the Jasmine of the title (who’s actually Jeanette, but has renamed herself) who is newly arrived in San Francisco to stay with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins). She’s not there because she wants to be, but because following her husband’s (Alex Baldwin) imprisonment for fraud and subsequent suicide, the government has taken every penny she had. [Read more…]