When I first read Yishu's novel My First Half Life more than a decade ago, it was about a beautiful woman who married a doctor for more than a decade, got divorced, and then entered the workplace and struggled to learn to stand up for herself. The hero and heroine of the novel are called "Juan Sheng" and "Zijun," after the protagonists in Lu Xun's most famous romance novel, "The Hurt Locker" - Yishu would be happy to guess that in modern-day Hong Kong, Juan Sheng and Zijun are the two main characters of the novel. Yishu probably enjoyed guessing what the love story of Juan Sheng and Zijun would be like in modern Hong Kong. This novel ends with Zijun's lucky encounter with a white knight who completes a magnificent turnaround.
"Blue Jasmine" at first glance looks like Woody? Allen's version of "The First Half of My Life". The beautiful and wealthy heroine suffered a marriage and bankruptcy, received vocational training, learned to be a small staff, was molested by a variety of unreliable men, met a high-flying handsome, and looked to have a happy life ...... However, no, it is not so at all. In the world of popular fiction, Yishu is sharp and cruel, but in Woody? In front of Woody Allen, she is simply dreamy and gentle--Woody Allen's sarcasm is the one thing that doesn't move. Woody Allen's sarcasm is the one that doesn't move and doesn't show any mercy, like when he made Cate Blanchett lose her makeup. Blanchett shivering in the wind with her hair wet from makeup, he accurately depicts the fall from grace of a woman in high society.
As the absolute protagonist of the film, Molly's main character is, of course, first and foremost the vanity and snobbery of a woman who has risen from an ordinary family (an adopted child, one might even say of less fortunate origin) to become a member of the upper class. From the information in the movie, she meets her rich husband while studying, then drops out of school and marries him to start a new chapter in her life, which also begins her uncontrollable condescension and indifference. She and Ginger are adopted sisters, but as a sister, if not a sibling, she shows really limited affection for her sister. Before Molly's bankruptcy, she shows not surprise but shock at seeing Ginger and her wife visiting New York. Woody uses a small bridge to make a stark contrast between the two sisters. Jasmine repeatedly turns down her sister and her husband's dinner invitations with an awkward expression, while her sister simply says, "It's your birthday next week, so let's take you out to dinner anyway." Jasmine had to hypocritically suggest a couple of restaurants before secretly whining to her husband with a saddened look on her face, "Oh my God, we're going to have to invite them to my birthday party!" After her sister's couple entrusts Hal with their investments, Jasmine seems to show a hint of affection, asking Hal delicately in the bathroom, "You're going to help them make money aren't you?" But the next second she's already worrying about yoga, Pilates, and the fundraising luncheon ...... In Jasmine's mind, these come before the working-class couple.
After bankruptcy, sitting at an al fresco restaurant eating cheap clams, Jasmine actually manages to mention, "Oh, how European it is here, once we went to the Mediterranean," and she still has to drink martinis with lemon while dealing with big old men who know nothing but vodka when it comes to getting close to the dentist and nurse. (The image itself is the perfect irony!) Blue collar (working class), dentist (middle class), she can't be interested in, a foreign minister who talks about the fashion world and traveling in Europe is the only one who can catch her eye. The ability to mention New York and Pike Street in conversation with the kind of offhand intimacy that made her glow, the light of her old life return to her nearly broken body. The woman who had long ago changed her name from the vulgar "Janet" to the foreign "Jasmine," had made herself into an elegant and glamorous woman, not for the life of an ordinary housewife, but tailor-made for high society.
She was not born a noblewoman. Though the version she bragged to others was that she dropped out of school in order to get married, and that she was just hanging out in school anyway. But later she also says that she was still an honor student in school. Such contradictory representations are not an unintentional mess of the script; rather they are exactly what Woody? Allen's portrayal is subtle: Molly is lying. For the simple reason that she wants to pass herself off as a woman who came from a privileged background, muddled through school and then inadvertently married a rich man, despite the fact that she came from a poor background, had to babysit to earn pocket money, and had to work hard in college to earn a future. Her marriage to Hal changes her forever, or rather, high society changes her, tragically, and then abandons her.
Unlike the similarly chosen American drama "Broke Girls," which pays no attention to the overtures and cold stares of those around her before and after the fall, Woody has his sights set on Jasmine throughout, for it is Jasmine's own obsession with the upper class that truly destroys her life. She could leave her financial criminal husband, but she pretends not to know and enjoys the luxury that comes with it; she could tell Deville the truth, but she doesn't, and she makes up lies in order to gain the status of ambassador's wife. She is so obsessed with traveling around the world and decorating her mansion that she is willing to "turn a blind eye" to maintain this illusion, and would rather build a castle on the beach than try to get close to it. Her obsession spreads to Ginger, who has always simply believed that "sexy and solid" is the best candidate, but she also sleeps with a sound engineer, and then asks her sister if "he's not better" while wearing too much French perfume. Vanity and lust are like maggots that eat away at Jasmine's life and grow like vines on her sister's balcony, resulting in both sisters falling hard on the concrete pavement of reality. Woody has no compassion here, but it's this "heartlessness" that contributes to the movie's excellent satirical quality.