My Blueberry Nights

My Blueberry Nights.  Dir: Wong Kar Wai.

Clasic Wong Kar Wai.  ("In the Mood for Love", "2046").  Visually and aurally gorgeous, with every shot, every frame, superbly composed.  Beautiful actors -- in this case, Jude Law, Norah Jones, Natalie Portman.  All seen through arresting obstructions and obscurations caused by neon lights, shadows, fabrics and furniture.  And the same themes of love, loss and longing in all their acute and subtle pain.  The soundtrack immediately evokes smoky cafes and bars, the timeless American interiors of hopeless and sentimental love.

The content, though, is mushy and over-sweet at its the core, like the eponymous Blueberry pie.  The script is slight, predictable, and uncaringly so.  This is not about the salad or the entree, just the dessert.  And in that sense a travesty: some incredibly fine actors -- some of my faves -- get wasted on trite, sentimental lines, and silences that strive for a poignancy that hasnt been earned by the story.

The only character fleshed out is not the protagonist Lizzy/Beth (Norah Jones) but the gold-hearted lying schemer played by Natalie Portman, who is believable because we want to believe in her, but archetypical to a fault.  There are flashes of true portrayals of youthful angst, the alcohol and TV-soaked dramas of lower middle class life, and the lure of beautiful strangers.  But this is all submerged by the rest of the script.

I plan to buy the soundtrack -- its the best thing in the movie, followed by the camera work.

2.5*
(Oct 2010)