My Blueberry Nights

Wong Kar-Wai's first featured film in English

I finally had the opportunity to watch My Blueberry Nights, the first featured film directed by my favourite Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai. Starring Norah Jones (in her film debut), Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachael Weisz and Natalie Portman, this movie is a compilation of three short stories connected by Norah Jones’s character as the connecting narrator.

Wong Kar-Wai has the ability to turn an ordinary event into extraordinary, and that’s precisely what he did in My Blueberry Nights. Elizabeth (Norah Jones) caught her boyfriend with another women at a cafe, and decides to leave her keys to the cafe owner Jeremy (Jude Law). The two of them became friends over time but Elizabeth sporadically decides to leave town one day only to keep in touch with Jeremy via a series of postcards.

With his films it’s not necessarily the storyline but rather the human experience, the human interaction that makes his works beautiful. Compared to his other Chinese movies, this isn’t anything new. My Blueberry Nights is essentially what Wong Kar-Wai saw in America the way In the Mood for Love was genuinely what he saw in 1960s Hong Kong. And in his eyes, this movie was very much American.

I was very skeptical when i first saw the trailer of this movie when the dialogue seemed too forced. Narration has always been Wong Kar-Wai’s trademark to connect the character’s thoughts with the audience, and after watching the movie i was relieved to see it was much better implemented than what the trailer had initial portrayed. In fact, the only iffy part was Jeremy’s (Jude Law) key analogy from for what seemed preachy and unnatural.

And whilst this movie was panned by many film critics, i for one really enjoyed it. The story isn’t as abstract and the dialogue isn’t as deep as 2046, but the feeling was definitely there. A lot of people were complaining about Norah Jone’s performance, of how she didn’t seem talented enough, and i’m pretty sure that’s precisely why she was chosen for this movie.

Wong Kar-Wai likely wants a fresh face to complement the storyline about an average girl, and since this movie is deeply tied with the jazzy soundtrack (which is also very good), Norah Jones would be the perfect fit.