My Blueberry Nights (2007)

Directed by: Wong Kar Wai | 111 minutes | drama | Actors: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Hector A. Leguillow

After a few phone calls for information about her boyfriend, Elizabeth (Norah Jones) comes to check in person at Jeremy (Jude Law’s) diner. He tells her in the kindest way possible that her boyfriend had dinner there with another woman. In a fit of anger, she hands him a bunch of keys and tells him to give it to her boyfriend when he comes looking for her. Jeremy puts the bunch in a large glass jar on top of a pile of other bunches of keys. Elizabeth comes a few times to check if her boyfriend has come by yet, but she hasn’t. Together with Jeremy, she talks about her grief many times and eats the blueberry pie that, for some incomprehensible reason, is untouched at the end of the day, while the other pies go up almost completely clean.

Trying to forget her grief, Elizabeth travels across America by bus. In Memphis, she goes to work in a diner during the day and in a cafe at night because she can’t sleep anyway. She meets police officer Arnie (David Strathairn) and his wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz), who are divorced. Arnie drinks like a Templar and Sue Lynne deliberately provokes him with her adventures. In Arizona she then meets Leslie (Natalie Portman) at the casino where she works, who earns her living playing poker. At a young age, Leslie has learned the necessary tricks and wisdom from her father to become as good as she is, but the complex relationship she has with him is playing tricks on her.

The first part of ‘My Blueberry Nights’ is a fairly pleasant ‘Kammerspiel’ that only takes place in the space in and just outside Jeremy’s eatery. Jude Law, in particular, plays very nicely the bar owner who has accepted life’s limitations without being bitter, but Norah Jones just falls short. She doesn’t even play badly, but it’s a meaningless performance. It is therefore a good thing that later in the film the focus shifts to Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman, otherwise she would have been really blown off the canvas. An intense lesson ‘how should I act’.

‘My Blueberry Nights’ is not a road movie. Traveling is off-screen or intentionally sped up, and Elizabeth can be seen primarily in the various venues she works in. It must therefore be the director’s intention to imagine that she mainly makes an inner journey. And this kind of vague symbolism is one of the film’s weaker sides that creates a sense of unease and impatience. Combined with the slow pace and the fact that some scenes are drawn out way too long, a lot of the magic evoked by the good acting is needlessly lost.

‘My Blueberry Nights’ is captivating because of the good acting from Jude Law, Natalie Portman and especially Rachel Weisz, but it would certainly have benefited from tighter direction and a lot of trim in some far too long scenes.