My Blueberry Nights - B

Elizabeth (Norah Jones) is a lovesick New Yorker recently dumped by her boyfriend. She meets Jeremy (Jude Law), a café owner, and together they try to make sense of love and life. Not ready to jump into another relationship, she travels to Memphis and meets an alcoholic cop (David Strathairn) who denies his recent separation from his philandering wife (Rachel Weisz); then to Las Vegas where she meets poker-player Leslie (Natalie Portman – radiant and bathed in sunlight). Written and directed by Shanghai sensation Kar Wai Wong, it’s filled with terrific slow-motion, jump cuts, and rich inserts of desserts. It’s fascinatingly shot with bright, bold colors and sharply edited (the DVD is a trim 95 minutes but other versions of the film extend to nearly 2 hours).Click below for more on the moving and absorbing Blueberry Nights

The “Blueberry” in the title refers to a blueberry pie that Jeremy cooks every day, but no one ever orders. It’s a metaphor for loneliness in love. Elizabeth’s desperation and Jeremy’s inner anguish are portrayed well by Jones and Law. Jones (in her first film) is a little outmatched by the superb actors that surround her, but mostly holds her own, her innocence and naiveté appropriate for her character. Her singing voice on one of the soundtrack songs is predictably beautiful; you can feel the pain she feels. The rest of the songs on the soundtrack provide an atmosphere of not only loneliness, but of Americana. Ry Cooder’s score/chords lay the groundwork for a mesmerizing experience.

Indeed, like most of Kar Wai Wong’s films, they’re not really films, but experiences. It’s a mood piece, a tone poem. This film meanders quite a bit and some may find the anecdotal narrative distracting, but the three stories stand alone and are acted well enough to be involving. Simultaneously, the separate stories contribute to Elizabeth’s journey to acceptance and love. Like Kar Wai Wong’s best film (Chungking Express), this film is at its best focusing on a relationship and gives the viewer a very rare thing: an intellectual chick flick. B