Every Wednesday, FM writers Simon Columb and Brogan Morris write two short reviews on Woody Allen films … in the hope of watching all his films over the course of roughly 49 weeks. If you have been watching Woody’s films and want to join in, feel free to comment with short reviews yourself! Next up is To Rome with Love and Blue Jasmine…
Simon Columb on To Rome with Love…
You could easily mistake this for a foreign film considering the amount of Italian spoken. Indeed, Woody Allen is a writer who has sharp wit and snappy dialogue sewn up in the English language, at least the Italian verbal acrobats don’t seem out of place. To Rome with Love is familiar Woody Allen, recycling his best narrative devices – a kind-of, but-not-really imaginary figure (The Purple Rose of Cairo); a glorious, picture-postcard location portraying flowing, Trevi fountains and Roman ruins (Manhattan, Midnight in Paris); seduction and adultery dominating multiple plot threads interwoven amongst an ensemble cast. Even Woody himself is acting! But Mighty Aphrodite-prostitutes in Penelope Cruz, Fellini references to fame and irrelevant bookends by a traffic director busy the true purpose of the film. Almost a selection of thoughts from Woody Allen’s brain, rather than a solid story. It stands like a stone sculpture but it’s a little shaky at times.
Brogan Morris on Blue Jasmine…
Late-era Woody Allen is only as good as his script and cast, and Blue Jasmine features one of his best of the former and a superb, typically eclectic example of the latter. As Jasmine, crumbling Park Avenue ex-wife of a shady NYC businessman (Alec Baldwin, smooth), Cate Blanchett is a sweating, pill-popping wreck; broke and starting anew in San Francisco, Jasmine’s another towering female creation of Allen’s. The film is ecstatically performed by the ensemble – Sally Hawkins, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Dice Clay, as Jasmine’s sister Ginger, Ginger’s boyfriend and Ginger’s ex-husband, outrank even Blanchett – but it benefits from being more focused on one single character than Allen’s films have often been of late. When it’s a comedy, Blue Jasmine is very funny, but it’s more often a darker tale of unearned wealth, class and crashing mental health. The final scene is one of Allen’s most surprising, troubling and tragic.
Brogan Morris – Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the young princes. Follow Brogan on Twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion.
Originally published June 11, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
