.

Blanche
DuBois comes onstage. She’s Stella’s older, single sister (early
thirties). Blanche waits inside the apartment and has a shot of
Stanley’s booze--the sisters reunite and Blanche reveals some bad
news--they are bankrupt. She had a bit of a break-down--Blanche is
horrified that her sister is living in a dump like this one when they
both come from such a wealthy, elite background. Blanche has another
drink--rest assured that Blanche is either having a drink or about to
have a drink at all times--Stella goes to the bathroom and Stanley
enters and Blanche sees a man not good enough for her sister and too
brutal for the DuBois sisters--while they chat, Blanche reveals that she
was married once, but her husband died-- that night Stanley and his
buddies play poker at the house. Among said buddies is Mitch, who is
single.

No,
you are not watching a remake of “A Streetcar Named Desire” or a
filming of Cate Blanchett's  Blanche, that she played on stage to
resounding success. You are watching a modern Woody Allen  version
called “Blue Jasmine” but unfortunately Allen is not the poet and lover
of words that Tennessee Williams was. Here Blanche is called Jasmine, or
Jeanette, her sister Stella here called Ginger, played by Sally
Hawkins, only now they are not blood sisters but both were adopted,
which gives Woody Allen a chance to riff on genes! He also has a Bernie
Madoff like Alec Baldwin while pointing fingers at how much did
Jasmine--Ruth Madoff--know?

Now
instead of one Staney we have 3: Gingers ex, Augie (Andrew Dice Clay),
her current lover Chili (Bobby Cannavale) and a possible future lover Al
(Louis C.K.) while Blanche/Jasmine’s gentleman caller Mitch  is called
 Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard). Some more modern touches are using San
Francisco instead of New Orleans, the guys watching a football game
instead of playing poker, Jasmine popping Xanax and  we see Blanche’s
Belle Reeves in her New York life. Allen does stick to old blues songs
playing a lot of the originals.

While
all the actors acquit themselves doing excellent work it is more Cate
Blanchett’s  movie than theirs or Woody Allen’s. This is the closest
we'll ever get to her stage portrayal of Blanche and, as of now, she is
the forerunner for the Oscar’s Best Actress award.