Better than Streetcar? (comparisons)

I went into this movie thoroughly expecting to hate it. But I ended up thinking it was amazing and even more powerful than Streetcar. Here's why I think so...

1. Insanity of the main character. In Streetcar, Blanche is just plain batty, living in some alternate reality from the first to the last scene. While this is effective for the story, it made her character static. The reveal of Blanche's character comes when we uncover why she went batty in the first place.

On the other hand, Jasmine is shown to be a pretentious snob but she still has a grip of reality, at least in the beginning. The dynamics of her character is that we see her struggling internally to convince herself of her happy delusion, and she is far from successful at this. Unlike Blanche who is thoroughly deluded, Jasmine is internally and outwardly conflicted. I think this is a more accurate portrayal of how most people lose their mind. They don't suddenly jump to a fantasy land of rainbows & unicorns, but they slowly lose a war with themselves.

2. The ending (SPOILERS BELOW for both Blue Jasmine AND Streetcar!!!)

While both stories end with the same essential point, Streetcar is much more overt while Blue Jasmine is extremely subtle. It's a matter of personal preference, but I prefer the subtle, almost confusing ending of Blue Jasmine. In both cases, Blanche/Jasmine have a total mental breakdown and we assume that they are lost afterwards. In Streetcar, she ends up getting hauled off to the insane asylum. In Blue Jasmine, we just see her sitting on a park bench. But it's Cate's excellent performance in this last scene that shows us that she has essentially become a mumbling bag lady--without spelling it out for us.

There are other points too, like Sally Hawkins' character Ginger (Stella in Streetcar). Ginger seemed to have a lot more depth than Stella who was essentially just a clueless subservient housewife in Streetcar. I loved Ginger's monologue near the end.

Wisely, Woody Allen didn't attempt to tread on Brando's iconic role in Streetcar. I gotta say, despite my initial hatred at the idea, this film won me over.