NateWatchesCoolMovies Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights is a gorgeous, touching little tone poem that explores love, loss and hurt by focusing on five different souls, all dealing with grief or loss in some way. Singer Norah Jones makes her film debut as Elizabeth, a naive young New York girl who's just been dumped by a guy she really cared for, and one can tell she's experiencing true hurt for the first time. She spends her nights daydreaming in a little café run by Jeremy (Jude Law, excellent), who gradually falls in love with her. She jets off, however, on a soul searching country spanning trip to try forget, and heal. There she meets several key characters who each leave an imprint on her and slightly shift her perspective on complex human emotions that she hasn't encountered a lot so far in life. An alcoholic cop played by David Strathairn, aches for the beautiful but wayward wife (Rachel Weiscz) who abandoned him. Strathairn gives the best work, showing chasms of heartbreak just with his faltering voice, in an intimate scene of purely distilled anguish that should have garnered him a nomination. In Reno she meets Leslie, an irresponsible gambling addict who lives fast and loose to disguise her own heartbreak. Jones has a camera's dream of a face, her dark doe eyes a canvas for the external happenings to paint a portrait of gradual understanding on. Law shows the tatters in his fast talking persona, beneath which we see glimpses of sadness, and blooming attraction for Jones. Director Wai really knows how to sink our awareness into each emotional state through very tight, fly on the wall camera work and unconventional documentation of each scene that doesn't pander to melodrama or patronize us by emotionally holding our hands, just simply shows what's there, in glorious unpretentious, and often heart wrenching honesty. It's all set in a haze of nocturnal neon, haunting crooner tunes and a tangible sense that we know these characters from somewhere in a far off dream. That's how well the mood of the film draws us in.

Michael Mendez How do I start this? It is my first time critiquing a film on-line and I felt I should start with this simple film by Wong Kar-Wai, whom I have seen many of his work. But I put that aside since this was a movie based in America. Most of his films take place in Asian, but ironically enough, his poetic dialogue still lurks among his first English- language project.Not much trivia on it other than the fact that it was the opening film in the 60th Cannes Film Festival. That and some other interesting bitties like that fact that the director (Wong) and lead actress (Norah Jones) both share a dislike in blueberry pies AND how Jeremy (Jude Law)'s character run a diner named "Klyuch", meaning "key" in Russian. One will come to realize that keys are actually looked at as a metaphor. Or so I believe. :)The story starts off with our beautiful protagonist, Elizabeth, who is just finding out from a diner manager, that her boyfriend is cheating on her. This causes her to give Jeremy (the diner manager) the spare keys that were for her. This is a common reoccurrence at the Kyluch diner. So much that there is even a fishbowl (I believe) filled with them. Each carrying their own separate story of heartbreak, including Jeremy himself who came to New York to start ANEW with a girl he fancied.There were three acts, in my opinion, in the story.The first act takes place in New York City with the relationship of Elizabeth and Jeremy spending time throughout the night. Not sensually but simply as friends, getting to know one another. The reason Lizzi keeps coming back is to see if her ex- boyfriend has come to get his keys.The second act, is barely about Elizabeth at all. I mean, the film is still from her point of view, but now, after she has left New York, she resides in Memphis, Tennessee, where she work two waiting jobs, a diner in the morning and a bar at night. The story focuses on a man named Arnie who we first see in the bar, alone, drinking till the place closes down. He is a regular around there and isn't rushed out. The pain and suffering in his eyes tell all that has happened him. He brings up how it is always his last night of drinking, but always comes back the next day. After a while he begins to warm up to Elizabeth who sympathizes for him and his heartbreak (obviously because we saw her go through the same exact thing in NY. Anyway, it is the conversation between him and our lead that really suck me in to this movie. He not only is a alcoholic in denial, but rather more of a kind soul who is just trying to forget. Forget what? His wife, played by the beautifully talented Rachel Weisz, who you will love to hate, seriously! :) It is never really determined whether he is still married or not, but the time does come when his old mistress come trotting in the bar, on his own turn, to go to the bathroom. Yeah right! You can see where this goes, but it is not about what happens. It is about what can never happen again. Some people fall in a hole and can't do nothing but keep digging and digging and digging. Bar fights. Conflicts. The usual. But worth the watch.Now we get to our third act, in which Elizabeth now makes her way to Arizona, a more open setting that will get you breathing easier after the tight city's we've been before. Here she encounter another interesting person. A woman, who owns herself, PLAYS POKER, perhaps for a living (?), gets in a sticky situation. This is Leslie, Natalie Portman's character. This act is not necessarily only about her conflict, but rather hers and Elizabeth's together, who helps her gambling away her money.----There is is my first review. But all in all, I would like to say that I find a lot of heart in this picture. Maybe it was something I was already looking for since I have seen almost all of Wong Kar-Wai's work. I believe if you are a person who can handle slow movies (knowing that it has MUCH to do about nothing and like it), knows a thing or two about loneliness and love-suffering, and basically if you want to dwell within the beautiful MIND of Wong Kar-Wai I would say THIS MOVIE IS FOR YOU. These were the kinda films I loved to watch when I was an alcoholic, but even though I am not anymore, it still tugs at my testies all the same.Last thing I would like to mention is the reason why these films are so astonishing are because of the fact that, one may see it as nothing going on, (No action. No crazy conflicts. No boobs.) and yet it has something to do about EVERYTHING. I give My Blueberry Nights a 4.5/5. And I hope you can all enjoy it as much as I have.

zif ofoz a wonderfully simple story of the wants of the human heart. desire can so often cloud our true feelings and we must experience life - first hand - to understand ourselves.i so greatly enjoyed this movie and i agree with other reviewers that there are holes in the story but - so what. the characterizations are so perfect and grasping of the viewers imagination any flaw in the story seems minor.if you want a story of soul searching and personal adventure to discover 'the self' this is your flick. some of us must seek through travel others are willing to wait it out hoping it will come to us. here we have both sides meeting - leaving - returning.this isn't a great movie but it is a wonderful story. please - give a chance!

Rodrigo Amaro Singer Norah Jones plays a young woman who takes a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love while encountering a series of offbeat characters along the way. One of them is Jeremy (Jude Law) the owner of a coffee-shop whose Blueberry pies are the only one left out untouched (according to him no one likes it). She and Jeremy has some conversations about destiny, love and some left keys in the place and the story behind those keys. Wong Kar-Wai's film is a very unsatisfying work that drags the viewer into countless slow paced scenes, and a ridiculous cinematography that mixed slow motion with blurry effects. The conversations at night between Norah and Law was great, it was the greatest achievement of the film, but the excessive use of intern scenes was tiresome, we never know if a day passed by between these encounters, she just enters and enters again. The supporting roles performed by Natalie Portman, David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz sometimes were good, other times were irritating. I mean, this story was too forced. A woman's cross in the path of many different characters trying to see life in another way. And then what? What can we possibly learn here? The simplicity of acts, and the actions of the characters didn't embrace me, didn't move me at all. And the whole lesson given by Portman's character of never trust everyone was good (she's a gambler who makes a great offer to Jones and then everything went wrong and she lost Jones money). With this lesson in mind I didn't trust this movie, neither trust that the director of the great "Happy Together" made such a weak film. My question is: Kar-Wai was being real here in making this film, did he really show his feelings about love or it was a too much cinematic film, trying to be an artist? Oh, about the blueberry subject about everybody hating it, I wish I could understand this pointless reference. Is it really that bad? I never ate one but that's another story. It's a sad vacuum in terms of story and direction, although the performances were quite good. 4/10