REVIEW: ‘Blue Jasmine’ Isn’t a Return to Form. It’s a Reinvention.

I don’t read reviews or production notes before I see films, so it wasn’t until almost the end of Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine that I realized it was inspired by A Streetcar Named Desire. Allen has done a number of homages to other filmmakers or based his movies on classics, but this is a jazz riff so accomplished that it transforms a disturbing meltdown into a pleasant experience.