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Blue Jasmine (2013) is a delightful film full of fine moments, the finest of which may be the closing frames of the picture which find Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) alone and miserable, chattering to herself on a public bench like a neurotic and solitary Forrest Gump. The ending befits her character and follows a lifelong string of deceptions, selfishness and entitlement that render it somewhat inevitable.

Though Jasmine has ultimately cracked under the weight of her own delusion during that closing scene, writer/director Woody Allen leaves her overall fate ambiguous. What becomes of Jasmine following that scene is left for the viewer to answer. She seems too much a narcissist to kill herself, and too proud to voluntarily seek out help. If the film’s omnipresent A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) cues are to be utilized here, it’s likely she’ll be taken away to the nearest San Francisco nuthouse. Whatever the eventual fate, the obvious one the film leaves us with remains an image of self-torment and insanity, and it’s that vision of Jasmine which the film was leading towards all along.

Blue Jasmine frequently paints its titular character as another victim of her late husband Hal’s (Alec Baldwin) schemes. She takes pills, drinks, complains, and cries martyrdom as though he destroyed her life, without accepting the slightest amount of accountability for how she arrived there. She’s an underdog - but not one that is easy to cheer for, as she’s an underdog due to her own choices and isn’t willing to fix her own conditions. She states a number of times that she regrets many of the decisions in her past, yet she’s determined to reinvest herself in the same situations. She’d sooner repeat the entire destructive cycle that made her an elitist in the first place and hope for different results, which is a textbook definition of insanity. But it’s also the easier route. Why not recycle what worked the first time rather than work hard at building something new? Especially for someone like Jasmine who believes a man of Hal’s social caliber and wealth is the only person worth being with. Her deeply-intrenched personality disorders don’t allow her to see beyond the scope of the tunnel of classism through which she’s decided to view society.

Jasmine doesn’t end the film with a revelation or an epiphany. She ends the film cracked, muttering to herself the same Park Avenue nonsense about Dior dresses and “Blue Moon” she’s been spouting the entire film.

“One of the things that’s most striking to me about Blue Jasmine’s take on regret is that Allen never really shows us a turning point before Jasmine was a brittle, delicate hothouse flower. She makes plenty of decisions worth regretting: her aggressive drinking, the way she looks the other way as Hal makes shady deals, the way she lures Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) into a bad deal, the fatal phone call. But she was damaged and hapless before any of this began, and so many of these choices feel pre-ordained by the kind of person she’s become. At its cruelest, Blue Jasmine implies she was always shallow and silly and unskilled, not really suitable to be anything but a fussy socialite, which makes the regret theme even more painful. The path not taken is a misery, but the path that was never even an option is absolutely maddening—possibly, at the end of the film, literally.” - Tasha Robinson, The Dissolve

Jasmine’s situation isn’t unbelievable, but her character provides only one side of a greater picture. The counterpiece is the part of the “self” that enables a person to survive negativity and re-establish. The side that uses pain as a lesson and not a crutch. And that’s the side of Jasmine that doesn’t seem to exist. Despite everything that went on during the film, her character learned nothing. Her past taught her no lessons, or, more accurately, she has not learned from her past tragedies. The relationships between Ginger, Chili (Bobby Cannavale) and Al (Louis C.K.) taught her nothing. Temporarily working in the dentist’s office and attending classes was Jasmine’s way of lying to the world, and to herself, by pretending she’s willing to take responsibility for her own life. But we see in Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) that as soon as a suave, rich gentleman comes along, she’s eager to drop the act.