It doesn't take long to realise that Jasmine French, the title character of Woody Allen's 44th film, is one deeply troubled woman.
In the first scene, she rabbits on to the alarmed woman seated next to her on a flight from New York to San Francisco, and the barrage keeps up at the baggage carousel.
By the time she lands on the doorstep of her sister Ginger (Hawkins) in the Mission District, we have a good a sense of her monstrous neediness, and of the pretensions to gentility (she's broke, but she has matching Louis Vuitton luggage and flies first class) that keep her alive. Newly minted though she is, Jasmine is a titanic, unforgettable character.
Transcending her derivative roots, she is a figure of radiant, heartbreaking individuality and, in bringing her to life, Blanchett turns in a bravura, career-defining performance that must make her a hot favourite for a second Oscar.
The origin of Jasmine's profound malaise emerges only gradually as the film takes us back and forth between her unwelcome stay in Ginger's spare room and the gilded palaces of Manhattan's Upper East Side from which she has fallen.
