My Blueberry Nights

“My Blueberry Nights” is the first American film by Kar Wai Wong, who gained critical acclaim in recent years for his trilogy of films, “Days of Being Wild,” “In the Mood for Love,” and “2046.”   I find it curious that a Hong Kong filmmaker would choose to make an American film at all.   Why leave the culture and language, the rhythms of a society and its tacit assumptions, for a strange land?    Like most of Wong’s films, “My Blueberry Nights” is character driven, which means that little details like diction and texture are really important – the people have to look, feel, and act like people we know, or might meet tomorrow.   This is a slippery thing for any director to manage, and for one crossing cultures, it seems almost impossible.    And maybe, after all, it is.

Norah Jones makes her acting debut as Elizabeth, a New York girl whose broken heart causes her to do the typical things broken hearts cause people to do in movies.   First, she confides in the owner of a coffee & pie shop (Jude Law), while eating his blueberry pie every night.   Then, she hits the road, a wanderer trying to figure out who she is by meeting whoever she can meet along the way to wherever.   Think “Into the Wild” sans the Wild.   In Memphis, she meets Arnie (David Strathairn,) who carries around in his pocket the white tokens he’s been given every time he’s tried to quit drinking – more than twenty of them.   And his wife, Sue Lynn (Rachel Weisz,) who is clearly the reason why he’s still drinking.  Then somewhere south of Vegas she runs into Leslie, a gambler on a losing streak whose father is dying, but she won’t go visit him, because he’s been “dying” before.

Jones is pleasantly bland in the lead role, though the question of whether or not she can really act is mostly left unanswered.   She’s the sounding board for all these other characters, so she’s not allowed much personality of her own.  Everyone else — well, I just have to seriously question these casting choices.   It’s not that the performances are bad, really, it’s just that everyone is so beautiful.   I mean really.   Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman?   Did Wong pick up a copy of People magazine’s annual “50 Most Beautiful People” and use that as his casting guide?    This is supposed to be a movie about average people, the kind who work in bars and cafes, the kind of have gambling addictions and sick fathers.   And these actors just don’t look right.   Aside from David Strathairn — who does a fine job — everyone’s just too glamorous to be living anywhere but L.A.   There are actors who can fill these roles.   Where was Jennifer Jason Leigh?   Kyra Sedgewick?   It’s exciting to think what she might’ve brought to the role of Leslie.  Or if you really want beautiful, what about Charlize Theron?   Certainly one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, she has shown a unique ability to play salt of the earth characters in movies like “Monster” (with the help of heavy makeup) and “North Country” (without it.)  Does Wong really think the average American man and woman look like Jude Law and Natalie Portman?

I know it’s a strange thing to complain about, that a movie’s actors are too good-looking.  But I think it’s indicative of a larger problem in “My Blueberry Nights.”   Its bold strokes are ok, but the details feel off, askew, out of sync.   If this were an action thriller, or romantic comedy, or horror show, that might be forgivable.   But in a film like this, a small, character-driven, wanderer story, the details are everything.   This is not a movie set in America, it’s a movie about America, and Americans.  To get the details wrong is to tell a story I can’t believe.   As a result, “My Blueberry Nights” takes place in some parallel universe — one that exists solely in the mind of a Hong Kong filmmaker.

Recommended

• if you’re a Norah Jones fan, and can’t wait to see her on the big screen.
• If you’re interested in how a guy from Hong Kong views America.
• If you think the average American looks like Natalie Portman or Jude Law.
• If my whole review made no sense to you at all, and you wish movie critics would stop talking about things like “texture” and “diction.”

Not Recommended

• if you actually live in America.
• if you can’t understand how someone can stake $2100 against a new Jaguar, win the car, and get cheated by the deal.
• if you get tired of all the pretty faces in the movies, and wish there were more actors out there who look like real people.   (This movie took good work away from those actors.)

“My Blueberry Nights” is playing at the Abbey Theater in Durango.