Woody Allen’s new film will so knock your socks off, you will never retrieve them again

Blue Jasmine is the latest film from Woody Allen who, at various stages of his career, has been declared on-form, off-form, sliding-from-form, returning-to-form and, for all I know, as I don’t follow these matters closely, wearing form like a carnival hat with tinkling bells, but there is no need to bother with any of that. All you need know is Blue Jasmine is brilliant. It’s brilliantly written, directed and observed; it’s brilliantly watchable, if not mesmerising; and brilliantly performed, particularly by Cate Blanchett, who will knock your socks off, and may knock them off so explosively there is every chance you will never retrieve them again. (They might be knocked off all the way to kingdom come, for example.) This is possibly a return to form, now I think about it, although whether it’s a return to form from having been off-form or not off-form exactly, just sliding from form, and not yet halfway down, I really couldn’t say.