My Blueberry Nights (2007)

Rabbit Trail

What I like most about "My Blueberry Nights" is the great soundtrack album My Blueberry Nights. Wong Kar-Wai who won an award at Cannes for Happy Together directed his first English language film. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well. Jude Law is always interesting to watch for me. His two Oscar nominations for "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain" gave much better stories and characters than does this film. Darius Khondji, the Oscar nominee for "Evita," does stunning work with the cinematography. However, time lapse photography of ice cream melting on a blueberry pie might make me hungry, but it doesn't compensate for the lack of a story. Law's Jeremy and Norah Jones' Elizabeth seem like they are destined to become romantically linked. After nights in the pie shop, Jones takes off which takes her to several locations. Rachel Weisz who won a supporting Oscar & Golden Globe for "The Constant Gardener" plays the sleazy wife Sue Lynne to David Strathairn's boozy policeman. I actually liked Strathairn more in this film than in his Oscar nominated performance for "Good Night & Good Luck" He has such an unrequited love and such a tragic demise. Down the road, Elizabeth runs into Natalie Portman's gambler character who seems juvenile, untrustworthy and spoiled. However, Jones can't hold her own in frame with Portman and the film loses its path, as it seems to take a rabbit trail rather than illuminating the Elizabeth-Jeremy story. Chan Marshall shows up as Jeremy's ex. The big change in the movie comes as Jeremy tosses a jar of keys he'd been keeping at the diner. While this film is handsomely filmed with good-looking talented actors and has a great soundtrack, it's rather awkward as a film, going nowhere slowly. Taxi! September 23, 2008

poorly made

this was really disappointing, great cast, could have been a great romantic comedy but the lines were off, slow and terrible photography. September 6, 2008

Could have been so much; became so little...

I really wanted to like this movie. I remember when the buzz surrounding this movie started flooding in during the beginning of 2007 and everyone was predicting it for all kinds of awards beings that it was Kar Wai Wong's first English language film and the casting of singer songwriter Norah Jones in the lead role was particularly interesting. I waited patiently for the buzz to turn into full-fledged madness but it seemed as if no sooner did the buzz begin then the buzz died and before I knew it the film wasn't even being released for a wide release and I had to wait until it was available on DVD before I could see it. Regardless of the fact that it managed only one nomination (at Cannes mind you) I still really wanted to see this film, and so I did, and now that Cannes nomination baffles me, because `My Blueberry Nights' is very disappointing.

`My Blueberry Nights' gets off to a sour start. In fact for the first twenty minutes or so absolutely nothing happens. We see Elizabeth, a frantic stalker-type ex-girlfriend going in and out of a bakery where she continues to ask the owner Jeremy if he has seen the man she was last in there with and they eat some pie and she watches some surveillance videos and cries and she gives him her keys to give to her ex and then she picks up and leaves town. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's not when you watch it. It's slow moving and rather vapid.

In fact the whole movie feels rather vapid.

There are a lot of critics who talk about Kar Wai Wong's infatuation with lovesickness, but I really didn't gather that here. I saw glimpses of it, sure, but overall the feeling I was left with was more empty than fulfilled. Sadly this was the first Kar Wai Wong film I have seen (but I do have `In the Mood for Love' in my Netflix queue) and I am left a little confused as to why this director is so lauded. I will allow his other films to change my mind though.

The acting is decent for the most part, excels in some areas and falls flat in others. Norah Jones is beyond doubt a phenomenal singer and musician. Her music touches my soul. Her acting is uninspired and bland. There is a part in the film when Faison's character says quite frankly to Weisz's character that he doesn't know what her ex-husband ever saw in her. As he was speaking those words I was thinking the same thing, but about Jones's character, wondering how anyone could find her remotely interesting. Her eyes are dead and she embodies no real emotion. Jude Law is charming across the board; a little obnoxious in some areas but overall strong. David Strathairn is stronger still as the alcoholic police officer Arnie. His subtle outbursts within his own skin are far too good for the movie he inhabits. Rachel Weisz is probably the most entertaining thing about this movie in the way that Thandie Newton is the most entertaining thing about `Crash'; a little uneven but uneven to perfection. Natalie Portman is entertaining yet nothing impressive. Her performance is decent, but doesn't really add anything to her character.

I also found the incessant, repetitive use of Norah Jones's music throughout the beginning portion of the film to be rather unnecessary and annoying.

By the time the film was wrapping up I was wondering what it was all about, what the whole purpose of this exercise was. Sure, Elizabeth was supposed to find herself out on the road with all these people she doesn't understand and eventually realize that Jeremy is the one she wants to be with, but that point could have been delivered a little clearer and a little more interestingly. I just found `My Blueberry Nights' to be a waste of talent and concept and apparently director, unless all of his films are like this and I'm just not intelligent enough to `get' them. August 8, 2008

I want my money back.

I rented this from Blockbuster and should have taken heed to my instinct to put it back on the shelf when I read the sticker proclaiming it to be a Blockbuster exclusive rental.

I was lured in by the cast and the art house feel. Ten minuted into the film, however, I found myself wondering: "is this it???". I kept waiting for it to begin but it never did. Jude Law and Natalie Portman were really the only interesting characters in the movie and their bits were so minute compared to the entirely lackluster Nora Jones that I kept wondering to myself if the rest of the cast would add this film to their shame list and forget they ever participated in this disaster.

As for the arthouse feel, think in terms of the cinemagraphic tricks used in music videos and video snapshots of subways in New York where everything seems purposely sped up and blurred for effect. Now imagine an entire film of that. It's exhausting.

As to be expected with such a gifted lead, though, there was some lovely music to keep me company throughout the numbing dialogue and impersonal directing. Other than that, it's painful. August 4, 2008

Diners, Trains, Gamblers, Love in Slo-Mo

"My Blueberry Nights" represents Wong Kar Wai at the peak of his craft. Not the stylistic transition I had expected as much as a translation of a directors vocabulary into a different spoken language. Which seems to make little difference, as Mr. Wong speaks a cinematic language that is both all his own and universal.

Each slow-mo blur and obstructed frame has as much poetry in it as a line of Shakespeare. Wong motifs abound-- Trains, clocks, diners, female gamblers, policemen, the down on their life and luck and looking for love. (Is the similarity of the names Su Li-Zhen and Sue Lynn mere chance?) From "Days of Being Wild" to this latest film, Wong's work is connected by a thematic thread. It is to his credit that repetition, even if deliberate ("In the Mood for Love" and "2046" come immediately to mind, as do the fraternal twins "Chungking Express" and "Fallen Angels"), does not indicate a lack of invention, a creative rut but rather a prevailing vision.

First-time actor Nora Jones (I must admit I winced at the prospect when I first read the news) acquits herself with charm and grace and the rest of the cast performs flawlessly, with David Strathairn perhaps being the standout. When one takes into account that, despite the crediting of two screenwriters, much of the dialogue is improvised by the the actors, as is Wong's wont, the strength of the performances stands out in greater relief. July 27, 2008

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