My Blueberry Nights DVD Review

"My Blueberry Nights" reviews

DVD

My Blueberry Nights

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2008-06-20 16:50:18

Provider

MRIB

DVD Review

Singer Norah Jones makes her movie debut alongside Jude Law in Wong Kar Wai's first English language and US-set film - an off kilter road movie with bonus wanderlust.

A break-up leads Elizabeth (Jones) to Jeremy's (Law) diner. They click, but Elizabeth has the desire to hit the road. Her first stop makes her a daytime waitress with an evening job bar-tending. Consequently she gets to see both sides of local cop played by David Strathairn. By day an average Joe, by night a hard boozing barfly unable to get over his departed wife who's playing wild and free with the local Jocks and bowling up to the bar occasionally to taunt him. All the while Jeremy is pining and phoning Midwest diners on the off chance Elizabeth is working there. Then she's offered a gamble. All her cash in a poker game against a flash car. The gamble puts her on the road with hustler Leslie (Natalie Portman). They head for Vegas, where Leslie's estranged father is in hospital, for another shot at the big time.

It's episodic and a strange route for Elizabeth to take to recover from a broken heart. Like Wai's movies it's suitably quirky, brilliantly colourful in look and character, but a tad slight compared to In The Mood For Love or even Chungking Express.

Jones acting is good enough, though, unsurprisingly, she's no Meryl Streep and Portman's the tour de force here, scene-stealing whenever she can. Strathairn and Rachel Weisz as the cop and wife lend proceedings a darker feel and some well earned gravitas. Ultimately, Wai weighs in with some romantic optimism at the denouement - fleetingly and thankfully.

Extras include a documentary about Wai's experience of his location change (to the States), the Cannes Press conference with Wai & Jones, a short

character study plus the trailer.

Copyright © MRIB 2008.