The story is basically a not too subtly disguised ransacking of A Streetcar Named Desire with a delusional and self-medicating snobbish woman coming to stay with her younger sister, who has a blue-collar life that she can't abide. There is a back story of how she came to lose her New York socialite lifestyle, and her mental stability in the process, which is visited too often in intrusive flashbacks featuring Alec Baldwin as her ex-husband, turning in another of his trademark womanising sleazebag performances. The story would have been better served by sticking just to her fallen life as she tries to start out afresh in San Francisco, all too evidently having learnt nothing.
Allen is clearly still petrified of contemplative moments, which is hardly likely to change any more, and so any second which is not taken up by verbal diarrhoea has to be filled with his usual recourse to plodding old-time jazz. The realities of the world beyond the cloistered one of the rich and comfortable are also only nervously guessed at, and therefore wholly unconvincing. But at least he's not in front of camera this time, and when he does, just occasionally, let Blanchett have a proper scene, she shows what the film could have been with a more daring helmsman. It's just a pity she's probably scuppered her chance at doing the actual Blanche DuBois character ever again with this act of charity for Allen.
5/10
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