Legendary filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai directs Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, and Norah Jones in his first English-language feature film -- a romantic road movie detailing the cross-country journey of a woman who sets off across the United States in hopes of mending her broken heart. Elizabeth (Jones) has just been through a particularly nasty breakup, and now she's ready to leave her friends and memories behind as she chases her dreams across the country. In order to support herself on her
journey, Elizabeth picks up a series of waitress jobs along the way. As Elizabeth crosses paths with a series of lost souls whose yearnings are even greater than her own -- including a troubled cop (David Strathairn), his estranged wife (Rachel Weisz), and an embittered gambler (Natalie Portman) -- their emotional turmoil ultimately helps her gain a greater understanding of her own problems. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
It's not the pie that is meant to make this watchable, it is Wai's greatest gift, observing people, little slices of life in New York, Memphis or Nevada. Unfortunately in this case, those slices don't add up to a meal, or even dessert.
Fans of Chinese director Wong Kar Wai's dreamy, romantic films will find My Blueberry Nights a luscious treat, although newcomers to his world of sensuous longing will no doubt wonder what all the fuss is about.
Few directors regularly exploit so well film's capacity for capturing the present and the past in the same instant. Wong is plugged into a special zone that feels that joy of experience and the pain of recollection simultaneously.
The too-neat screenplay doesn't allow for nearly as much improvisation as Wong's earlier Hong Kong reveries, but this impressionistic canvas is still profoundly sensuous and floridly vulnerable
That's another thing about Wong: even when you're not quite sure what he's trying to say, or if he actually has anything to say, you get your money back in the beauty with which he says it.
Wong Kar Wai's visual style with its evocative mood is the mainstay of this lament to love, although its rambling narrative detracts from the film as a whole.
What the film ends up feeling like is someone else's clumsy attempt to imitate Kar-Wai's style while missing out on his obsessive perfection and emotional depth.
Terminally uneven film. It's charming in New York, purple in Memphis - though David Strathairn shines as a drunk who can't get over the end of his marriage - and completely off the rails in Nevada as Elizabeth/Lizzy/Beth (Norah Jones) travels America to get over a broken heart, when really, she should have gotten
together with that charming cafe owner across the street (Jude Law) all along. Natalie Portman is too young for the role she plays (gambler with estranged father), but Norah Jones surprises in this beautifully shot and nicely scored film. If it didn't get so precious in the middle, it would have been much better.
My Blueberry Nights is a movie that is astonishing if only in the sense that it talks you out of liking it. Its cast is reasonably impressive but director Kar Wai Wong started shitting the bed about 5 minutes in (namely with this jittery slow motioney effect of which the technical term escapes me, but looks like the
director and the editor sat in the editing room smoking meth and drinking Red Bull as they put the movie together) took a movie that you kind of want to care about then convinces you to do the absolute opposite. Norah Jones is a cute and empty vessel in the movie and the whole dynamic between her and Jude Law was as conrtived as it was pretentious. Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn and Natalie Portman play grotesque South caricatures that must have been Tennessee Williams-inspired. The Chan Marshall cameo was a nice surprise but by the time the whole thing was said and done I didn't care. Actually I stopped caring despite the abundant foxiness about 20 minutes in. At least it wasn't long...
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