If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to read spoilers, please skip this thread.
At the end of the movie, the director leaves it open-ended as to what happens to Jasmine. It’s clear that she is in bad shape, but it’s not clear where she ends up staying, if she remains sane, if she bounces back, etc.
It looks like Woody Allen decided to leave it up to the viewer’s imagination as to what happens to the heroine. I’m curious, in your mind, what happens to Jasmine after the movie ends?
I figure she’s about to jump off a bridge.
She turns back into Cate Blanchette.
Okay, copout.
Her sister’s had it with her. Danny hates her. Her new beau dumped her for being deceptive. Still, she has a lot of Park Avenue razzmatazz going for her. Ultimately I see her going back to New York, finding another rich fish who doesn’t care that she’s basically nuts, and ending up like one of the Grey Gardens ladies.
I wonder what Mrs. Madoff is up to?
But only after she turns to the camera and says “Can I go? Is this over?”
It sure seemed clear to me that she had become one of the homeless mentally ill living on the streets muttering to herself as people avoided her.
How does she get back to New York? She has no money. She is almost certainly ridiculed and ignored by her former ‘friends’, who weren’t devoted enough to her to tell her that Hal was cheating on her with a string of women (although frankly if she was so obtuse to that herself it is unlikely that she would have listened to any accusations aired to her) and who avoid her when she is a shoe clerk on Fifth Avenue. Going to San Francisco to live with her sister was a desperate last stab for her, and she really has nowhere else to turn, not even her (adopted?) stepson who wants nothing to do with her. I highly suspect that DSeid is correct; she is going to become one of the many homeless of San Francisco, talking to herself.
Killing herself? I don’t see it. If she was going to do that, she would have done it when Hal left her. Her anger isn’t internalized; she lashes out at others, even when it is against her own interests, as when she drops a Roosevelt dime on Hal after he tells her he is leaving her for the French au pair. She isn’t nearly cognizant of her own failings to take that kind of responsibility for her own failings.
And just point of note, although I didn’t see it explicitly recognized in the credits, this is an obvious riff off of A Streetcar Named Desire mixed with the real-life story of Bernie Madoff, removed to San Francisco and with the youthful homosexual lover replaced by a philandering con-man. Of course, in that play, Blanche gets taken away to go to the crazy house. In our post-Reagan modern times where institutional public facilities for the non-violent mentally ill are a premium, Jasmine is destined to walk the streets, babbling to herself in an increasingly disheveled fashion, with her sister still waiting to ship her bags to her “forwarding address”.
Great performances, BTW, by most of the cast, and especially Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins (who does well in the understated supporting performance which could easily have been overshadowed by Blanchett’s more dramatic character). The only thing I found kind of false and stagey was Augie’s incidental confrontation just as Jasmine and Dwight were going to pick out the engagement ring. I was expecting to see that Dwight was more of the same–a user who selected Jasmine for her looks and charming manner–but that never really gets fleshed out before Jasmine gets the carpet yanked out from under her. Although the story and pacing is a little uneven, it was well worth watching.
Stranger
But she has been talking to herself, in public, through the whole movie: on the plane to San Francisco and at the cocktail party. So her mental state has been fragile for a long time, but she can pull herself together and put up a good front when needed.
Her larger problem is a tendency to lie. I still think some rich New Yorker would take her on; the ex-wife of a disgraced gazillionaire who still can talk the talk and ain’t too bad on the eyes. If she can solve her financial problems, the mental illness is not a problem - the rich can compensate for that in all kinds of ways.
Borrows it. Maybe Chili will give it to her, just to be rid of her.
But she’d better do something about that Chanel jacket; it’s getting kind of rank.
Same behavior, but now she has no money. She was eccentric, now she’s Crazy Street Lady.
If she could admit she’s got no options (which she won’t) she could go back to Michael Stuhlbarg’s dentist…
She’s not looking too good on the the eyes by the end of the film (and kudos to Ms. Blanchett for playing down the role to that degree). She’s not even in a state of mind where she could be appealing as a trophy wife of a second tier huckster; Skarsgaard’s ‘Dwight’ is only so anxious after her because she is clearly well versed in the cachet of the nouveau riche which he aspires to be and is unaware of her background. In Manhattan, she is a known and highly disgraced quantity, and her mental state–which she cannot even hold together for as long as it takes to deal with a rough, unmanipulative-but-attempting-to-control-himself Chili–does not speak to her ability to deal with the actual pressure of having to deal with her reputation long enough to make anything in New York work. She is out of options and on the street.
Stranger
Oh yeah well I say she’s lousy with options! She’s a fictional character, so maybe she marries Scrooge McDuck! Or maybe she invents a time machine and brings a jar of Marshmallow Fluff back to ancient Egypt, where they make her Queen!
Sky’s the limit, boys!
A lot of things could happen, but I think losing Dwight and her son pushed her over the edge. My impression after the last scene on the bench is that she isn’t coming back and is on the way to becoming the muttering homeless lady.
Another vote for muttering homeless lady.
I imagine a scene in a few years where her stepson is walking with a wife and child and encounters Jasmine sitting on the ground talking to herself.
Yep. I can’t imagine any other ending for her. Especially because the sister isn’t going to go looking for her since Jasmine continued to brag that her new fiance’ was having her move in with him. She’ll assume Jasmine is just ignoring her again now that she’s not needed.
Like the opening scene of the true story The Glass Castle where the adult, successful author Jeannette (Jeannette? Jasmine?) Walls sees from her limousine a scruffy homeless woman picking through the trash and recognizes the woman as her mother.
I watched Blue Jasmine this afternoon and found it well done AND tedious, sad, and major league downer.
I’m glad Woody Allen has gotten over the use of the hand-held camera. Used to make me seasick.
What ‘rich New Yorker would take her on’??? she’s disintegrating, she is losing her mind. She had her chance with one rich fish, who rejected her… Do you think there is an endless pool of rich guys looking for a decompensating, going-crazy middle aged woman who is losing her looks along with her mind? Walking along the streets in her one good suit, babbling? Yeah, sure, all those rich guys looking for trophy wives would line up for a chance to hit THAT… Never mind they can buy themselves 21 year old strippers, mail order brides, mummy’s best friend’s daughter Buffy, or any woman who is marriageable. Or stay single and have a cute young thing every month. A crazy 40ish woman?.. None of her rich friends have helped her. What family she has isn’t helping her… Waiting for a rich New York guy to sweep her up off her feet? Are you shitting me??? I really can’t say what is going to happen to her. She tried a regular job. She tried hooking another rich guy. She tried staying with her sister till she got on her feet. I don’t know. But a rich romeo looking for a fixer-upper is just not going to happen.