Dir. Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong/China/France, 2007, 111 mins
Cast: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz
Review by Jean Lynch
“There’s always a whole blueberry pie left untouched. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just that people make other choices. You can’t blame the blueberry pie”
So says Jude Law’s mancunian Jeremy to the forlorn Elizabeth (Jones), who spends her nights in his New York cafe, wallowing in blueberry pie and ice-cream and hoping that her cheating boyfriend will one day return. His keys sit in a jar full of other lost or discarded keys, and Jeremy regales her with stories about their owners, including his own.
In a film dripping with metaphors and ironies, perhaps the biggest irony is that Jeremy’s little observation of his culinary delights is itself a good metaphor for the reaction to this film. For his first foray into the English language, director Wong Kar Wai has served up a very sweet and somewhat kitsch piece of Americana with a film which received possibly the lukest warm reception ever when it opened the Cannes Film Festival early last year. Most critics labelled it stereotypical and and condemned it as inauthentic. Apparently, the beautifully shot imagery belies its mundane subject matter. That real life is just not like it’s presented here.
So let’s play devil’s advocate. Let’s say that My Blueberry Nights is, in fact, a remarkably mature film with some excellent performances, and a dialogue-driven script that does indeed celebrate not only the mediocrity of life, but also its disappointments and the ironies too.
Immediately of interest is singer Norah Jones in her film debut. Elizabeth – or Lizzy or Beth, depending on who’s doing the talking, but pointedly Elizabeth to Jeremy, who sees her as she really is – embarks on a self-imposed road trip through the night time of society, moving to Memphis to work in a bar, taking pity on drunks, their estranged wives, brassy gamblers, and other social misfits. She’s effectively a little child finding her way in the grown-up world and she plays it remarkably well, particularly as it’s as much how things are said, and the body language and facial expressions that convey them, as the words themselves. She mixes vulnerability with defiant strength, and just oozes across the screen.
In fact, there are good performances all round and Jeremy is possibly Jude Law’s most likeable character yet. Gentle, knowing and a bit fuzzy round the edges, it’s also nice to hear something other than mockney emanating from his lips, even if it does slip occasionally. There is a sensitivity here we haven’t seen before and reminds us not to give up on his initial promise. Meanwhile, Rachel Weisz is barely recognisable as the estranged wife of the drunken, tragic Arnie (Strathairn, as excellent as always), one of the sad regulars at Elizabeth’s bar. She’s all quirky southern belle, with not a whiff of the english rose we know her for and states what a long way she has come since The Mummy. Natalie Portman, too, is very convincing as the seemingly sassy gambling gal who may win at the table but not so in real life. Together, we have an impressive line-up of three-dimensional, complex people whose reactions to what their complicated lives throw at them are emotional but not melodramatic, and therefore very moving.
With a mellifluous pace, the film moves gently, punctuated with the occasional outburst of violence, but which is quickly resolved, and continues on its way, just like life itself really. It has a dreamlike quality. And yes, the much-criticised lushness of what should be quite grubby settings is very much in evidence. However, this is Elizabeth’s story – these are her blueberry nights – and we are seeing this through her eyes, as a rose-tinted memory, and is even at times narrated by her, as she sends address-less postcards back to Jeremy, detailing her adventures. Hers is a rites of passage story, but it is a tale she has deliberately chosen to structure and follow in this way, knowing she sets out a child and wanting - and succeeding - to emerge as a woman. And the fact that an ordinary girl, in an often sad world, can tell her non-descript little story and find within the ordinariness such beauty, is surely something life affirming that we should applaud.
Maybe we all should try a piece of blueberry pie.
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