My Blueberry Nights (2008)
Grade:A
I loved My Blueberry Nights. You may not love My Blueberry Nights. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that it’s highly likely you will not love My Blueberry Nights (heck, just take a look over on Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes for a critical consensus that’s less than favorable). This is a rare case where I’m totally fine with that. It’s a film I simply responded to and felt in sync with, despite my objective reservations about the screenplay (it’s flat, kinda goes nowhere fast, and is boring), the style (too much, regardless of how pretty the shots are), and the acting (love you Rachel Weisz, but the Southern accent was just alright, and love you Norah Jones, but your acting was just alright).
Still, despite whatever issues I had with the film, I ended up liking the film for having them. Something about the entire package and the finished product as a whole, as an experience, was simply magical for me. From my perspective, the film is a glorious tone poem, a dream on film, flitting in and out through a hazy fog of camera tricks and cinematographic flair and Norah Jones narration. There’s some semblance of a story, concerning Jones’s Elizabeth as she goes on a year-long journey across the country to discover herself after a terrible break-up, all the while sending postcards back to Jeremy (Jude Law) who runs a local café near her old New York City apartment.
The film is bookended by extended scenes between Elizabeth and Jeremy, and the middle takes the form of two main chunks in Nashville and Las Vegas. In Nashville, Elizabeth becomes entwined in the lives of local cop and drunk Arnie (David Strathairn) and his estranged wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz). Then she moves on to Las Vegas where she and compulsive gambler Leslie (Natalie Portman) teach each other a thing or two and then part ways.
Every plot point is so straightforward and practically exaggerated in its straightforwardness that the film works marvelously as a fable. This is director Wong Kar Wai’s homage to Americana, and as an outsider, the Chinese director’s view of America is incredibly stylized and idealistic. The Nashville section of the film in particular is steeped in archetype, and to a point, so is the Las Vegas portion. Elizabeth’s story, too, is an idealistic view of the American dream, in which someone can journey throughout the country and find themselves and then come to New York City to fall in love with another traveler through a conversation over pie, the most American of desserts.
Wong Kar Wai apparently picked Norah Jones from her music career simply because she is who she is, and the interesting thing about her performance is that she isn’t called upon to act very much. She’s perfectly serviceable, but part of the beauty of the story is that the events of the film happen to Elizabeth rather than Elizabeth taking a particularly active role in the lives of those she meets around her. (Compare this to Mariah Carey in Glitter, where the first-time actress is called on to carry the film’s dramatic ups and downs and crumbles under the pressure.) She’s an observer, a traveler simply watching those around her as she tries to discover something about herself. She doesn’t have time to stir up trouble and as such, others gravitate to her and play out their lives around her. It’s a perfect role for Jones, clearly not an actress, because she just has to show up on set, deliver her lines, and let the seasoned actors around her get the big acting moments. I’m not about to rave about her acting prowess, because she’s admittedly flat at times, but she’s perhaps a better choice because she isn’t an actress by trade. A veteran actress would have acted too much, and Jones simply is – it’s a style that suits the role.
The supporting players all fare extremely well, with Weisz delivering her histrionic role with some semblance of restraint, Strathairn being mopey without inspiring pity in the audience, and Portman resisting the urge to overplay her larger-than-life character nicely. Then there’s Jude Law as café owner Jeremy. He’s great, and he and Jones have the daunting task of selling the central love story between them. Together, they have a wonderful chemistry that seals the film’s greatness for me in their final interactions. Jones’s final narration speaks of coming home to find true love, and as enacted by her and Law, it’s a beautiful thing to behold. My Blueberry Nights won’t work for most everyone, and I’ll own that, but for me, all the disparate elements that ranged from alright to great on their own all combined to create a sum that ballooned into something magnificent.
Bottom Line:
The film won’t be for everyone, and I’m the first to recognize the flaws, but it all ultimately combines into an all-encompassing experience that’s simply magical. It’s a love story, a study in Americana, and a wonderful example of how the medium of film can add to a story instead of simply presenting it.
© 2004-2009 Ben Waldorf. Posted November 10, 2008. IMDB