My Blueberry Nights

Somebody said Wong Kar Wai's "My Blueberry Nights" is a poor imitation of his own prior works. I think it's half true. Although its smell and taste are awfully familiar, but, to me, those feeling always linger to your memory longer than any ordinary film just the same.

The film opens with Elizabeth (Norah Jones in her film debut) wandering into Jeremy's (Jude Law) coffee shop. On her side, she's just breaking up with her boyfriend. She's angry and exhausting. On his side, he's lonely and has heartache past. And he secretly fell in love with her. After one unforgettable night they had share, suddenly she decided to go for a road trip (to find "the meaning of life"). She met a lot of individual people who somehow exchange their emotion with her.

She met Arnie (David Strathairn), a cop who can't cope with a separation with his super sexy ex-wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz). She met a gambler, Leslie (Natalie Portman) who get used to lie to everybody including herself. Not until the truth is finally catch up with her. In the mean time, Jeremy is trying to locate her. He really wanted to find her and repeat that unforgettable night for the rest of his life.

After I watched first 10 minutes of the film, I wasn't so sure that is it the right choice to cast Norah as the lead. But after that, it got better (maybe it's because she looked calmer and decided to be a good listener). But the best acting in this film belongs to David Strathairn who plays this heartbreaking character so well that I wish I could do something for him.

This is Wong Kar Wai's first English-language film. For those who love "Chungking Express", "Days of Being Wild" or even "In the Mood for Love" might found this is rather disappointing. his usual trademark to produce dreamy atmosphere and create such a subtle narrative seems a little bit too obvious (and tacky). Without Christopher Doyle's collaboration, Darius Khondji's cinematography seems a little bit pale by comparison.

Disappointing doesn't necessary means bad. "My Blueberry Nights" is a good film created by one of the greatest director-poet living today. If you happens to know him only for this movie, lucky for you. Because you will find yourself completely falling in love for the first time with those amazing works he has created once you watch them.

The film is all about mood. If you are not in it, you will not like the movie. My recommendation is to watch it at night, in bed, with no worries on your mind or things to do. It is not something really great, but it soothes the soul like one of those old road books.

The story itself is more of a three parter, each section detailing a mindset and the situations that define it. You see the hopeless romantic, the one person who let the other inside instead of just sticking to the outside, and for whom losing the other is worst than death; then there is the rebellious daughter that loves and hates her father until it's to late to do anything either way; and of course, the story of Nora Joneses and Jude Law's characters.

Bottom line: lay comfy in your bed and listen to the slow rhythms of the music while digesting the human nature presented in the film. In the end it is worth watching.

Wong is one of our three greatest living filmmakers.

He has transformed imagination for a planet. When real histories are written, artists like this will be appreciated for what they begin, giants compared to politicians who can only try to end things.

His last four films were transformative. Now he tries something outside his realm of mastery.

Like his main character, he has decided to travel the US in search of love. Also like his main character, he doesn't care about the story, only the afterglow. Its the mood that matters. In his previous films, he literally works without a script, creating an obvious vacuum where the story would be.

Here, he simply adopts a story that is so vacuous it leaves a similar hole. With a lesser artist, you would actually pay attention to the story and wonder about it. I suggest you simply ignore it, providing it with no more semiotic weight than the doorknobs which are so carefully photographed.

The idea here is simple: he finds a woman who by herself evokes a mood. He's done this before, and found creatures whose screen presence melts boundaries between stones allowing transparent slipperage. In this case, its Norah Jones, who does have a charm. His key image is of her drunk asleep on a diner counter with crumbs of delicious pastry on her full lips.

The way he's chosen to carry her image is through her songs, which contain a deceptive tension of confident tentativeness. This is a woman who is intensely unsettled and so is settled in herself. Jude Law plays a sort of urban domestic who prepares and waits, simply waits and draws her back.

In between the crumbs and the kiss are adventures with two women played by Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. They are placed as outer bounds on two sides so that our character's stone can slip home. One is remorsefully constrained by neediness, the other guiltily unconstrained. Both lose men, but not our heroine.

Christopher Doyle is not present on this, and its obvious that it is part of the risk Wong is taking: new country, new language, new mode for moodiness, new crew altogether. Different sorts of lingering and saturation.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Movie Review: My Blueberry Nights (2008) By Ken Lee

The filmic language of this film is unmistakably WKW, and it won't be wrong for one to say it's reminiscent of his earlier works, chief of which, "Chungking Express"; but it doesn't surpass past achievements, and does not bring us to the "next level", figuratively speaking.

A sentiment that may at once appears to be a bit too harsh, necessarily, this may be. But we do come to expect more from WKW, almost a master, in this age of ours.

Weak plot aside, this film benefits from some truly wonderful (supporting) casts throughout, especially from David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz, except for the most important - the ingénue character that Norah portrays. Symptomatic of this problem is, despite limited screen time together, one can't help wanting to find out more about the Katya character, who seems to share more on screen chemistry with Jeremy (Jude Law) in that cameo, and their past relationship seems a very promising spin-off, in its own right.

And if a post-modern pastiche can be made unto this film, imagine if it's the doll eye Faye Wong (of Chungking Express' fame) with Jude Law in this film...

Ten minutes into the film, when the "Yumeiji theme" (in harmonica) used so prevalently in "In the Mood for Love" was played in the background, I was almost teary eyes. This is one for WKW's fans, even if it's not for the ages.

In one word: predictable. I'm sorry, I really did want to like this. After all, the Chinese Director - Wong Kar Wai – is famous in the world of independent World Cinema and this has been his long awaited first English language film. And of course the cast is both extremely beautiful and undeniably talented – just not at working opposite each other.

It has to be said: when Jude Law is good he's mind blowing, but when he's bad he's unwatchable. Unfortunately these days, more often then not, I cringe when he comes on the screen. It's such a shame, especially as he's so nice to look at, but rather then growing as an actor he seems to be becoming a caricature of himself. I mean, his character Jeremy is supposed to be a Mancuniann in New York – but he can't even pull that off believably! I was curious to see what Norah Jones would be like on the big screen. My verdict: stick to the singing. The first half an hour was painfully forced and not helped by Law's dry performance. It did get marginally better as Elizabeth (Jones' character) leaves Jeremy's blueberry pies behind and goes on a self-discovering journey across America, though this might be more due to a wonderful performance by her co-stars.

David Strathairn especially deserves recognition. His portrayal of alcoholic cop Arnie is superb. Unable to accept that his marriage to Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz) is over, he befriends Elizabeth when she takes on two waitressing jobs in his local bar and dinner. An argument with devastating results ensues, and we see Weisz at her best – ruthless and sexy yet vulnerable. Natalie Portman's performance as a crazy gambling addict is equally great, although her acting opposite Jones never felt comfortable.

Finally, Wai is renowned for his creative cinematography, and at least in that respect My Bluberry Nights didn't disappoint. Maybe if you watched this with the volume set on mute you'd see this as the masterpiece it's trying to be. But while tension can enhance a film, I felt like this was just full of confusion. Artistic indie flick or traditional Hollywood blockbuster? Well, neither really, just a lot of unnerving insecurity.

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