Blue Jasmine | 2013
Woody Allen borrows the structure of A Streetcar Named Desire as New Yorker Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) arrives in San Francisco to stay with her working class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins).
New York is seen only in flashbacks before the collapse of Jasmine’s life, where she shares a beachfront home with dubious businessman Hal (Alec Baldwin) in Quogue, Suffolk County, on the South Shore of Long Island.
Flouncing out of East Side Manhattan jewellery store Mauboussin, 714 Madison Avenue, at East 63rd Street, Jasmine reveals apprehension to a friend about the impending visit of Ginger and blue-collar husband, Augie.
Indeed, Ginger is clearly out of her comfort zone as Jasmine coos over the designer handbags at Fendi, 677 5th Avenue, at East 53rd Street.
With Jasmine determined not to have her social life disrupted, Ginger and Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) are bundled into a limo to go sightseeing at the South Street Seaport at Fulton Street.
It’s on the way back, as they’re driven along Church Street in Tribeca, that Ginger spots Hal with a woman on the corner of Walker Street, and she’s faced with the dilemma of whether to let Jasmine know about her husband’s philandering.
Jasmine’s gilded life collapses soon enough, leaving the high-flying socialite with no option but to depend on the kindness of her West Coast sister.
The San Francisco she finds is not the city of Basic Instinct, or even Mrs Doubtfire. Ginger’s modest apartment is in the city’s unfashionable Mission District at 305 South Van Ness Avenue, just south of 14th Street.
She works about a mile to the south, on the checkout at Casa Lucas Market, 2934 24th Street at Alabama Street.
And she’s now separated from Augie, who lives way to the west in the Sunset District south of Golden Gate Park. The house, from which Ginger collects her kids, is 2181 48th Avenue on the corner of Rivera Street.
The snobbish Jasmine makes up an uncomfortable foursome, sipping vodka martinis with Ginger, her new boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale) and his pal Eddie, at Mission Bay waterfront restaurant The Ramp, 855 Terry A Francois Boulevard.
Reluctantly, Jasmine is obliged to accept a job as a dental receptionist in the practice at 790 Ulloa Street, at Claremont Boulevard in West Portal, near Mount Davidson.
Things take an awkward turn as her smitten employer Dr Flicker invites her for a drink at venerable Persian-themed bar Aub Zam Zam, 1633 Haight Street, in the city’s one-time hippie haven, the Haight-Ashbury district.
Jasmine feels more at home in the classy suburbs of Marin County, across the Bay from San Francisco. A better prospect seems to be eligible widower Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) whom Jasmine meets at an upscale party in a house on Britton Avenue in Belvedere.
Reinventing herself as an interior designer, Jasmine offers to help Dwight with the new home he’s bought on a bayfront street in the Paradise Cay neighborhood of the Tiburon peninsula.
Soon they’re casting their eyes over a four-poster bed at a furniture sale, which was filmed at the Historic Escalle Winery, 771 Magnolia Avenue, in Larkspur, a former brick production facility turned into a winery in 1890 by French immigrant Jean Escalle.
Ginger meanwhile hooks up with the amiable Al (Louis CK), whom she meets at the same Belvedere party. They couple enjoy a lunch break walking along Ocean Beach, with Seal Rocks in the background, before going on to spend a little time in the Motel Capri, 2015 Greenwich Street, at Buchanan Street, in the Marina District.
Under the influence of her regular regime of Xanax and vodka, Jasmine somewhat inappropriately unburdens a little too much of her life to Ginger’s young sons over a slice at Gaspare’s Pizza House & Italian Restaurant, 5546 Geary Street in the Richmond District.
Nevertheless, all seems to be going well with Dwight but, even as they’re picking out an engagement ring in the window of Shreve & Co, 200 Post Street, Jasmine’s past unexpectedly catches up with her.
As the two sisters face their very different futures, the film winds up with a bleak little scene set on the north side of South Park, in front of the South Park Café, 108 South Park Street, in the South Beach area.
