An intense, closely observed character study of a New York socialite facing penury, stuck with relationships gone astray and a lost family, Blue Jasmine is a return to form for veteran filmmaker Woody Allen. Some critics are even calling it his strongest film in recent times. And it has Cate Blanchett at her finest as the lead. Blanchett is stirring as Jasmine: beautiful but broken, arrogant but fragile, self-seeking but also blatantly used and exploited, deceived and deluded, in irrevocable decline and tragic denial at once. Only her regal posture and easy style masks her utterly crushed spirit. Blanchett internalises the character, brings it alive physically with every twitch of her haunted eyes and every move and shake of the hand. She lives the woman abandoned by the world, and by her own self.