MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

Kar Wai Wong Written by: Kar Wai Wong, Lawrence Block Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn, Cat Power Distributed by MGM (theatrical), The Weinstein Company (all media) Film is released in the U.K. on Feb 22nd, 2008. Review by Michael Edwards

rating: 2.5

Wong Kar Wai's latest release is his first English-language feature film, and his linguistic switch certainly doesn't appear comfortable. The story begins in New York and follows a simple template: Elizabeth (Norah Jones) breaks up with her boyfriend and begins to confide in charming Manchunian cafe owner Jeremy (Jude Law). They bond over blueberry pie before Lizzie sets out travelling across America in search of herself. Standard road-movie/emotional journey set up. As she crosses the States, working various menial jobs and saving her money to buy a car, Lizzie (or Betty, or Beth) encounters a series of people who each have something to teach her. But most importantly they all provide an aesthetically pleasing canvas for Wong Kar Wai to deploy his classic visual hallmarks. Largely occupying Hopper-esque settings of transience to emphasize the thematic overtones of loneliness, isolation, and thus self-contemplation, we are treated to frequent bouts of manipulated frame rates, saturated colours and aggressively wistful non-diegetic sound. Unfortunately these pretty embellishments are of far less effect than in his previous films such as CHUNGKING EXPRESS where the heady rush of a chase scene is heightened and the confusion physcally felt through similar devices, or IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE where longing and desire cause time to slow as the string music tugs our gaze toward and caresses the object of desire. MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS does not build up sufficient character identification or emotional tension for these well-honed and visually stunning shots to truly work their magic. This is rarely the fault of the cast who, with the exception of Jude Law whose casting as a Manchunian working-man could not be more off the mark, largely pandered to the director's sumptuous visual style. Natalie Portman and Rachel Weisz in particular looked great in their supporting roles, and even had a couple of moments in which I was drawn into the dilemmas of their characters - centred of course around love and loss. It's just that the scripting was far too facile, and gave the viewer little or no credit in terms of unearthing the philosophical questions addressed by Elizabeth's journey. The painfully blunt narrative tool of her constant postcards to Jeremy back in New York drag us tortuously through her experiences, and only had one real positive impact when they sparked a scene in which Jeremy, desperately trying to get in contact with Elizabeth via telephone, mistakenly pours his heart out to another waitress in Tennessee by the same name. And if this contrived narrative tool wasn't enough, we were frequently treated to incredibly bland and unnecessary philosophical nuggets: "sometimes we rely on other people to define ourselves, like a mirror". As if we couldn't work that one out from the whole structure of the film, or from Jeremy's attachment to Elizabeth, or the underlying theme in every single subplot encountered along Elizabeth's journey!! What haunts me most of all about this film is that I couldn't shake from my mind something I once heard Wong Kar Wai say (in a talk at the BFI last year). He said that he thought Western audiences found it much harder to follow complex plot lines and large numbers of characters. As a statement this is pretty shocking but if this, rather than his inexperience working in English, is the root cause of the facile plot devices and blandly announced nuggets of philosophy that sporadically crop up at opportune moments throughout the story then my respect for this director really will dip. But as we are unlikely to find out the real reasons, suffice to say that fans of Wong Kar Wai will appreciate his lavish imagery, sensual close-ups and the way he liberally paints his cinematic canvas with lithe and ponderous musical scores and vivid colours. But his appreciation for aesthetic gloss is in this instance sadly not matched by his usual aptitude for insinuating hidden depths, and arthouse audiences will find little of genuine interest in the bland and frequently clunky plot. www.myblueberrynightsmovie.co.uk