My Blueberry Nights (2008)
Directed by Wong Kar Wai
Written by Wong Kar Wai, Lawrence Block
Starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman
Release Date April 4th, 2008
Published April 4th, 2008
Wong Kar Wai is a wonderful artist whose 2046 is a masterwork of sex and cinema. Few people saw that subtitled, Cannes festival honoree mostly because it was subtitled and a hit at Cannes. The fact is, most Americans are turned off by foreign films. Can you name the last foreign film to hit at the American box office? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Sure. Can you name another?
Didn't think so.
With popularity in America as his goal, Wong Kar Wai has now brought his ethereal style to our shores and despite the change in geography, once again no one noticed. My Blueberry Nights has a cast featuring Jude Law, Natalie Portman and pop star Norah Jones and even that can't bring in audiences.
Pop sensation Norah Jones is the central character in the odd, slightly charming, My Blueberry Nights. As Lizzie, Jones plays a disillusioned romantic who drops her boyfriend's keys off at his favorite pie shop. This is a popular idea as the owner, Jeremy (Jude Law) has a bucket full of keys, each with their own story of love gone wrong.
Lizzie returns to the pie shop night after night to see if the ex has picked up his keys and to hear stories of lost love from Jeremy who remembers the story of each set of keys. However, before you get the idea that this is about the keys, Lizzie is off on her own adventures leaving Jeremy to his sad little blueberry pies that only she ever ate.
First Lizzie goes down south where she works at a bar. One of her regulars is Arnie (David Straithairn), a cop whose wife has left him. He drinks almost non-stop and the bar owner (Frankie Faison) lets him run a tab that seems to have stretched for years. The ex-wife, Sue (Rachel Wiesz), isn't entirely out of the picture. Parading her new, younger man around the bar and showing up at random moments, she is undoubtedly the source of his drinking. I'll leave you to discover what happens here.
Soon Lizzie is back on the road and arriving in Reno. There she hooks up with a troubled young gambler named Leslie (Natalie Portman). Lizzie loans Leslie all of her money and when she loses everything, she gives Lizzie her car in exchange for a ride to Vegas. There Lizzie is drawn into Leslie's drama with her gambler father. Meanwhile back in New York, Jeremy has been calling all over the south trying to find Lizzie. In their short time together he has fallen in love with her and he desperately hopes to reconnect.
My Blueberry Nights is filmed by Wong Kar Wai through this filter of ethereal dust. Every scene glows with a dreamlike sheen. This would be interesting if it affected the way you perceived Lizzie's journey. However, since Lizzie's journey is so inconsequential the film style doesn't really matter. Indeed Lizzie's journey's have little more to them that what I described.
It all looks really unique but who cares.
It's difficult for me to be so harsh about a movie from Wong Kar Wai but really, WTF? Lizzie travels from place to place, little happens and she is off to the next journey. The stories are ostensibly about love and loss but watching Lizzie react to these happenings is like staring at a brick wall. In her acting debut, Norah Jones shows a talent for being beautiful and little else.
Her Lizzie is our conduit for these stories of love and loss and yet she never really seems to learn any lessons along the way. Here you have a movie with Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman, two actresses who could have knocked out this role in their sleep and left you weeping, and Wong Kar Wai chooses Jones who's inscrutable expression seems to never change even as the world around her is shouting out its message.
Despite the troubles of lead Norah Jones, My Blueberry Nights has a charm and sweetness to it that is undeniable. Wong Kar Wai is far too talented for this film to become an outright trainwreck. It's just a shame that with a pair of actresses like Ms. Portman and Ms. Weisz at his disposal, Wong Kar Wai chose an overwhelmed first time actress. The role of Lizzie needed the skill and finesse of a veteran to teach it's valuable, if quite familiar lesson, about living for the romantic moment.
