Jasmine refuses to accept her economic comedown by keeping her old habits as a socialite. She flies first class; she pays generous tips; she and her sumptuous designer clothes seem so incongruous with the noisy and messy streets market in San Francisco; and of course she would not accept her barbarous lower class admirer. From the intermittent flashbacks, we see her former extravagant life in New York, and slowly we scrape the fragments together and the reason of her irrevocable destitution unravels.
In order to be an interior designer, she takes computer classes and works as an assistant for a dentist. She meets her ideal partner, Dwight, but she instinctively lies about her situation. Dwight finally finds out about her lies and leaves her. In the end of the film, she moves out of her sister’s apartment and sits on a bench in the street, talking to herself and not knowing where to go.
Although the film depicts the tragedy of Jasmine and alludes to a rather serious theme, the script is full of humor. There are many funny scenes in the film that made me chuckle, although I failed to get the Park Street and Brooklyn part. Her impatient and absent-minded attitude to the indecisive patients at the dentist’s office and her harangue to the boys about tipping big in the restaurant were the two scenes I found most hilarious.
The acting of Cate Blanchett in this movie is just beyond perfect. She successfully portrays Jasmine’s decent and condescending attitude, her hypocritical and snobbish manner and her desperate and hysterical anxiety. Every single glance or posture convinces me that she is the real Jasmine. She definitely deserves the next best actress Oscar.
