“My Blueberry Nights” is an odd road movie directed by Wong
Kar Wai and it describes “a story of a woman who takes the long route instead
of the short one to meet up with the man she loves,” according to the director.
Appearing on the panel are Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel
Weisz, David Strathairn and Cat Power.
Norah Jones makes her film debut and the camera really loves
her, as she is charming and has obvious talent. The Grammy-awarded jazz-singer stars as Elizabeth, a young girl who is still suffering due to a ruined
romance. She comes night after night at a New York Café, where the owner,
Jeremy (Law), listens to her stories and feeds her blueberry pie. Elizabeth travels by bus to Memphis, Tennessee,
where she takes two jobs and she encounters several interesting characters like
an alcoholic policeman Arnie (Strathairn), his adulterous wife Sue Lynne
(Weisz) and the troubled soul Leslie (Portman.)
Wong and his co-writer Lawrence Block want to show that
Elizabeth affects everyone she meets during her long travels and the idea of
the movie is to trace her emotional journey back to life after a “fairytale
gone bad.” The single problem is that the luckless characters are too beautiful
to be believed. It is quite difficult to buy beautiful Norah Jones as the
recently-dumped Elizabeth
and charming Jude Law as the sad-Jeremy. However, Wong’s dreamy, melancholic first
English-language movie is mostly a success, as it depicts a never-ending story:
the people who are stuck in their heartaches.
The idyllic soundtrack, released on Blue Note, features
tracks by Norah Jones, Cat Power, Ry Cooder, Academy Award – winning composer
Gustavo Santaolalla and others. The film was shot in the United States, including locations in Los Angeles, California
and Caliente, Nevada.
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