Official Movie Site (Spanish): My
Blueberry Nights
Movie Stills: (swiped from starplus.com)
IGN Review: Joe Utichi
Wong Kar Wai's slow, melodic romantic dramas have an enormous
audience amongst hardcore film buffs. His ability to find and
reflect the tragedy of his characters, and the journeys they take,
strikes a chord with most who come across his work. But they're
also the sort of movies that a single viewing is usually enough for
most people; their stories so emotionally exhausting that a repeat
watch is hardly ever warranted.
And it must be said; the language barrier is an issue. Subtitled
films can be hard work for the general moviegoer and when combined
with Wong's tendency to suck every ounce of emotion from his
audience, it's often that his movies are simply too inaccessible
for most.
But with Wong's first English-language feature, My Blueberry
Nights, opening this year's Cannes Film Festival, it's clear that
it is the emotional heart of his films and not the language they're
made in, that makes them a difficult viewing experience. Fans of
Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman or Rachel Weisz will no
doubt find a film they didn't expect. Fans of Wong Kar Wai will be
pleased to hear that his first foray into the English language -
and the star-power the project has attracted - has done nothing to
dull the spirit with which he makes his films.
Despite being best known as a musician, Wong gives Norah Jones the
lead as a young woman who finds herself breaking up with her
boyfriend and traveling across America to raise the money to buy a
car. Along the way she meets a British caf¿ owner, played by Jude
Law, David Strathairn's unlucky-in-love drunk and his estranged
spouse - Weisz - and Natalie Portman's poker rounder, all of them
distracting her from her own drama and helping her come full
circle.
Jones struggles as the film opens, perhaps bearing the weight of
her inexperience, but as the journey begins she settles into the
role, never treading Oscar-worthy waters but nevertheless providing
an engaging anchor for the film's emotion.
Law's Manchester accent, on the other hand, is in a world of its
own, switched on only when the script calls for him to say
inherently northern things and rather forgotten otherwise. That
he's playing a British caf¿-owner living in New York is fair
enough, but the necessity to have him damage his performance by not
using his own accent is rather curious.
Weisz and Strathairn, perform well, as does Natalie Portman, who
arrives late and keeps us interested to the end, but most are
victims of a script that doesn't really provide the level of
dialogue its emotional core requires, as characters spout clich¿d
philosophies with little of the power Wong's films have shown in
the past.
Fans of his work will leave My Blueberry Nights happy that his
first English language film is no outright disappointment, but
they'll never class it amongst his best work. General audiences
will likely be lost, but the film's cast list may just attract
those who were wanting for Wong Kar Wai and had yet to find him.
And if the film can win the auteur even more fans, then it can't
really be that bad.
