BLUE JASMINE

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkings, Alec Baldwin

Writer/Director: Woody Allen

Running time: 98 mins


Woody Allen's latest “Blue Jasmine” has been heavily touted as a return to form and a return home (to the USA). Half set in New York, half in San Francisco, it is his first American location feature in ten years.
This time out, he tells a story of romantic betrayal, damaging self-deception, and the coldhearted mores and mistakes of the rich set.

Allen's script divides his leading lady Cate Blanchett’s story into a before-and-after — the crucial event being her husband's fall from grace — with erratic cuts and edits between the two time periods. In her wealthy phase, she's incredibly spoiled, pampered, and utterly oblivious to husband Alec Baldwin's sexual and financial shenanigans.

When poverty strikes she moves in with her sister, Sally Hawkins, and starts an ongoing verbal exchange with Hawkins' thicko lout of a lover, who detests her airs and graces, despite being lacking in the funds department.
Allen's ongoing ability to put together an interesting cast continues, whether it's actors playing comfortably to type (Baldwin as a self-satisfied sleazeball) or pushing into new territory with Hawkins as a working-class American and Peter Sarsgaard as a loaded wannabe politician.

Plus former standup monster Andrew Dice-Clay, who throws in a more than acceptable performance as Hawkins’ put-upon dimwit ex.

However it’s undoubtedly Blanchett’s film. She appears in virtually every frame and gives a brilliant, sustained performance as a deluded, desperate and fragile woman.
 

PRISONERS

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Paul Dano

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Running Time: 2hrs 35mins

Child abduction and murder are two of the most horrendous crimes and here in “Prisoners”, those are the prevalent themes. The film attempts to explore the motives of the perpetrators, the reactions and responses of the victims’ loved ones and the construction of an intricately plotted attempt at deciphering all of these in the name of entertainment.

It opens on a cold, rainy Thanksgiving day, as two neighbouring families (Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Viola Davis, Terrence Howard) gather together to relax and enjoy the event, before quite suddenly the youngest daughters of both families go missing.

The blame game begins. Is the kidnapping culprit the mentally disturbed loner (Paul Dano) who shacks up with his odd aunt (Melissa Leo)? Or could it be the creepy chap who regularly shops for children's clothing at a local store (David Dastmalchian)? Or someone else? A studious, sombre policeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) takes on the case, as he attempts to unravel the mystery, but as the hours turn to days, it's Jackman, as a desperate father with serious vigilante intent, who goes in feet first.

This is an arduous piece of work, running at a far-too-lengthy two and a half hours with clear influences from Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River. The narrative lapses into red herring territory too often however, and the pseudo-religious subtext is only slightly touched upon, although The Lord's Prayer is wheeled out twice at important moments for no apparent reason. The entire film is relatively quiet, long and at times agonising and bone-chillingly atmospheric, thanks to the talents of sublime cinematographer Roger Deakins who manages to makes driving in the rain look like the most dangerous thing imaginable. The cast is impressive, especially the glum Gyllenhaal, who effectively dominates the film with his haunted stare.

Disappointingly though, in its final 30 minutes, Prisoners leaves the realm of frightening plausibility and what had previously felt like genuine human evil, as it creaks to a drearily predictable but less than credible conclusion. The sudden shift feels jarring and fake but it doesn’t negate the two principal performances by Jackman and Gyllenhaal, playing two men racing towards the same ends result but using radically different methods to get there.