Reflections on Blue Jasmine (2013) by Rowena J Ronson

I had been wanting to see Woody Allen’s latest offering for a long while, but it was only this week that I, at last, managed it. And it was well worth the wait, as the film, in every accomplished way, met the formidably glorious high standard of a WA great.

For me the theme was lack of integrity, and how we can be dishonest in so many ways. We can lie and cheat in business and life; we can live with someone who lies and cheats in every way imaginable and convince ourselves that it isn’t happening; we can pretend to escape from our old world and forget our past in the romantic delusion of a new relationship in order to cheat our desired future of the truth; we can be married and have an affair but not tell either partner the truth to satisfy our own needs. Blue Jasmine opens for us a story of such dishonesty and deception and shows how devastating the consequences can be, but still in that light-hearted Woody Allen way that marries tragedy with comedy in an ecstatic entwining.

The film got me thinking about the condoners in this world, the quiet ones who go along with dishonesty, turning a blind eye if the duplicity serves them too, living the lie themselves with concrete justification to counteract their own guilty consciences.

I quote Shakespeare: ‘To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.’ How many of us live by this adage in this day and age and do we do so congruently in all aspects of our lives? What are your thoughts?