Blue Jasmine

Cate Blanchett is spectacular, as a woman desperately clinging to sanity and order as her world collapses around her ears. When her Bernie Madoff-type husband's Ponzi scheme finally evaporates, Jasmine's carefully constructed personality crumbles, and we discover that her life was a well-dressed shambles even before the money was gone. It's a work of art to make us feel sorrow and pity for a woman so repellent and complicit in her own demise.

The makeup crew did a great job with Blanchett's anxious sweat
and deteriorating eye makeup throughout the movie.

I found the structure and screenplay surprisingly flimsy- a key moment brings Jasmine together with her sister's ex-husband (Andrew Dice Clay) on a streetcorner by completely unbelievable coincidence- I could almost see Woody Allen pushing Clay into the shot to deliver his monologue.

A real pleasure to watch Blanchett at work. She gets an A grade, the rest of the movie, a B-minus. (Amazon Instant Video)