My Blueberry Nights

My Blueberry Nights is a film of two notable firsts. One: Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai's first feature to be entirely in English, rather than his native Cantonese. Two: An acting debut for velvet-voiced chanteuse Norah Jones, five-time Grammy winner and purveyor of background music for many a local coffee shop. Sadly, neither are compelling enough reasons to make this film worthwhile: it's an ill-conceived, often ridiculous spongecake of a movie, and a needless blemish on Wong's otherwise flawless canon.

Jones plays Elizabeth, who turns up at a Manhattan café one evening asking after her boyfriend. The café's owner, Jeremy (Jude Law), a Mancunian emigré who, we later learn, came to NYC to run marathons rather than eateries, recalls that the boyfriend was in the previous evening with another female, dining on pork chops. A break-up phone call later (and an unseen subway mugging which seems very easily shrugged off), and Elizabeth is ensconced at the cafe counter, wolfing down Jeremy's vastly unpopular blueberry pie and laying the tales of woe on thick. It's enough for Jez to make a telling observation: something about pies and cakes being like love and relationships...and...doors closing but not being shut forever...and...sorry, you’ve lost me. Soon, Elizabeth's off on a soul-searching jaunt through Memphis, Nevada and Las Vegas, mailing Jeremy postcards (without giving much of an indication of her whereabouts, leaving him to have to track her down by long-distance phone) and encountering a ragtag bunch of misfits along the way. As the film nears its end, she returns to the cafe for more blueberry pie (there's plenty left), more chatter and a forthright declaration that it’s all been worth it –- she’s a changed woman and she's ready for love. With belly a-full, she nods off on the counter top, Jeremy leans in for an upside-down kiss, and there's an hour and a half of your time you can't have back.

It's hard to be positive about this film. As you'd expect from Wong Kar-Wai, it's beautifully shot and it retains many of the stylistic flourishes the director's best known for. Yet if it wasn't for the gorgeous blue tint DP Darius Khondji lends to the cafe scenes, they'd almost be unwatchable, thanks to the cringeworthy cod philosophy Jeremy sees fit to peddle at many an opportunity. It's dialogue that Wong's normally able to carry off, given the mystique and stolid restraint Asian actors seem to boast in abundance -- by that, I mean you tend to believe it, whatever they're saying (well, I know I do) -- but here, with Jude Law, it's just, well, silly. Law does an OK job of the Manchester accent but he's miscast, plain and simple.
And he isn't the only one. Norah Jones, despite her best efforts, doesn't have the star quality to carry off such an indefinable role, although you could argue that she wasn't given a great deal to play with in the first place. As a character, Elizabeth -- or Beth or Lizzie, as she is called alternately with each change of setting -- lacks the sort of hook needed to engage the audience. She's given little opportunity to display feeling, emotion, ambition or any other fundamental aspect of her personality, and when she has it's all done with propriety, as if she'd be scolded for letting go. It could be down to the screenplay -- written by Wong and American crime writer Lawrence Block -- but you imagine a more established actress might have been able to tease out something that we, as the audience, could sympathise with. You don't much care what Elizabeth’s doing, where she's going or why -- as a protagonist, she’s unlikely to linger long in the memory.
David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz both make appearances in Memphis, where Elizabeth is working two jobs: waitress and barmaid. Strathairn plays Arnie, a cop by day and boozehound by night, trying unsuccessfully both to sober up and win back ex-wife Sue Lynne, a Southern floozy played by Weisz. Again, the casting feels off-kilter (we know Weisz is talented, but couldn’t they find an American to play Sue Lynne?), although both actors do decent enough turns. Strathairn almost channels Dustin Hoffman with some of Arnie's tics and quirks, while Weisz has the film’s weightiest emotional scene and delivers as you'd expect.
But it’s Natalie Portman, as high-rolling poker player Leslie, who brings some much-needed sass and colour to what is, at this point, a fairly dreary affair. She’s not a particularly well-imagined character, but she's sharp, snappy and fun and it’s a welcome relief -- although, by introducing the suspense and adventure of a high-stakes card game and subsequent road trip to Vegas, you can’t help thinking Wong’s seen it himself: that there’s been very little carrying the film and even less to take it to a natural and satisfying conclusion.

It’s frustrating that Wong Kar-Wai’s first excursion into English-speaking movies was something of a wasted journey. (Indeed, his following feature was a re-edited version of his 1994 wuxia film, Ashes of Time.) Arguably an attempt to crack the Western market, and to resonate with the scores of moviegoers averse to ‘anything with subtitles’, My Blueberry Nights can be marked down as a blip, a failed experiment, the doughy mess left over from a recipe that, deep down, just wasn’t going to work.