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MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS
Directed by Wong Kar Wai
Produced by Jacky Pang & Yee Wah
Written by Wong Kar Wai & Lawrence Block
Director of Photography, Darius Khondji
Edited by William Chang Suk Ping
Music by Ry Cooder
Released by the Weinstein Company
Hong Kong/France. 90 min. Rated PG-13
With Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman & Chan Marshall

My Blueberry Nights is a strange, moody film. It has some of the atmospheric touches that fans of Wong Kar Wai will recognize from In the Mood for Love or Happy Together – intense music, beautiful shots, longing, and heartbreak – but ultimately, Wong’s first American-based, English-language feature doesn’t quite come together. Something of his vision seems lost in the translation.

Elizabeth (Norah Jones) is in a New York City café when she learns that her boyfriend is seeing another woman. She befriends the café owner (Jude Law), and, just as they start to fall in love, she sets off on a cross-country journey, waitressing her way through America. She encounters characters who move her, like Arnie, an alcoholic cop (David Strathairn) obsessed with his estranged wife, Sue Lynne, and Leslie, a tragic gambling fiend whose father is dying. Elizabeth sends the café owner postcards from her trip and finally returns, and they are reunited.

In her debut role, singer-songwriter Norah Jones is lovely, but somehow empty. Her wide-eyed innocence sometimes seems unconvincingly staged, and the love story of the two leads lacks the persuasive moral complexity of Wong’s earlier romances. On the other hand, the supporting characters are layered. Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman, both playing against type, deliver bravura performances. As Sue Lynne, Weisz is a tragic Memphis siren, ageing and crumbling, whose charm and beauty have ultimately trapped her instead of helping her escape. Portman's bleached blond, thrill-seeking Leslie is all cockiness and bravado, with such raw fragility beneath the surface that it seems she could combust or explode at any moment.

The film’s Americana – the roadside diners, gambling casinos, highways, and hospital parking lots – appears to be heavily influenced by David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch. Yet something feels choppy and inauthentic about the connection between the story and the settings. Sometimes the dreaminess of this film works, and other times it leads to a sense of surrealism that borders on disconnection. Ultimately, the story’s trajectory – of Elizabeth returning to New York to a happily ever after ending – doesn’t fulfill the film’s deeper possibilities.

In Happy Together, possibly my favorite Wong Kar Wai film, a young male couple from Hong Kong travel to Argentina, living and reliving the cycle of their relationship – cheating, breaking up, reconciling, and then doing it all over again. The relationship, however abusive, feels so truthful that it has a deep resonance for viewers. Beyond that, the music, performances, and incredible images converge to create a deeply original work. My Blueberry Nights has vestiges of Wong’s originality, but the plot is too conventional, and parts of the script are too forced.

My Blueberry Nights doesn't showcase the director's best work or represent his peak, but it has enough delicious signature touches – memorable images, romantic atmospheres, and compelling vignettes – that I imagine that his second or third English-language feature could be dazzling, as in the progression from Fallen Angels to In the Mood for Love. Elizabeth Bachner
April 4, 2008