My Blueberry Nights (Review)

Wong Kar, Wai? Did you learn nothing from John Woo's crash-and-burn Hollywood exodus? I'll admit, the charming visage of Jude Law and Norah Jones's square-jawed, expressionless staring are a step up from a mulleted Jean-Claude Van Damme and Wilford Brimley's pussy scratcher, but My Blueberry Nights -- an awful title for a non-porno movie, by the way -- is neither a good way to introduce yourself to American audiences nor a (Jones) high point of your oeuvre.

But for a minute I was convinced. While the film begins as a compilation of Wong's Greatest Hits (available from K-Tel), it hits the right notes in the right places. Jeremy (Jude Law) is proprietor of the -- gag -- Cafe Klatsch (in fact, for much of the film he seems to be the only one who works there), a cafe/diner in New York City, which is apparently rife with cafes owned by Englishmen. Norah Jones has DSLs and a philandering boyfriend (been there). They form a bond over the symbolism of the keys customers leave for their significant others to pick up -- as though that shit actually happens -- and blueberry pie, apparently the red-headed stepchild of the pie family.

Here we are in familiar Wong territory, and that worthy's direction helps the mundane relationship between the two somewhat interesting; although, even as a grown man and father, I can't help but predict that the scene in which Jones's character, Elizabeth, passes out at the diner with ice cream on her lips will elicit crude thoughts and even cruder laughter from audiences weened on bukkake; and when Law kisses her, I wouldn't be surprised if snickerings of 'snowball' were bandied about.

Unfortunately, the scenes between Law and Jones are mostly the film's bookends. After Elizabeth tearfully realizes that her man really don't want no part of her no more, she alights for the territories (lamentably, no Wolf), winding up in Memphis (sadly, no Pau Gasol).

It's here where the film starts to gain momentum. Elizabeth works days at a diner, and to save money for a car she works nights at a bar. Arnie (David Strahairn, in the film's best performance) is a regular. Estranged from his wife (played by Rachel Weisz, in the film's breast performance), he spends his nights drinking until close, hoping his wife will return and that his addiction to alcohol will tomorrow stay away, at least for another day. Neither work, and Arnie, frustrated, takes his regret out first on his wife's lover, then on himself.

And when Arnie died, that's when the film died. (It's also the point where the film's editor runs amok by beating you, unrelentingly, over the head with Wong's directorial style.) The next evening, Arnie's wife, Sue Lynne, shows up at the bar, proposes a toast to Arnie that falls on deaf ears and mocking mouths, gets wasted, is asked by the bar's owner, Travis, to settle Arnie's tab -- an asshole move, by the way -- freaks out and leaves, and Travis asks Elizabeth to go outside and make sure she's all right. The following scene between Weisz and Jones is possibly harder to watch than to read my comma-inflected previous sentence. Props to Wong: you probably lost interest in this review a lot sooner.

Elizabeth writes postcards to Jeremy, and Jeremy gets boners every time he reads one. He tries to call her (because he wants to snowball her again), but she's nowhere to be found. Apparently, this bitch has never heard of email.

When Elizabeth finds herself in Nevada (again working as a waitress; set your career goals higher, girlfriend), she meets Leslie (Natalie Portman, trying to look like a hot lesbian). And if the film was already DOA, here's where it re-animates itself to eat your brains. Leslie is a card shark. Apparently. She loses a big hand and asks Elizabeth to stake her, her brand-new Jaguar as collateral. Elizabeth, bending to the will of every character in the film, agrees. Leslie loses, gives Lizzie her car, then asks for a ride to Las Vegas, where she promises she can get staked and get herself out of such a poor plot.

When the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants arrive in Vegas, Leslie learns that her father -- who taught her that the number after 10 is Jack -- has passed away. She confronts Lizzie, thinking her father set up some scheme to...do something, and shouts. Then she visits the hospital and picks up her dearly-departed dad's cowboy hat.

It was at that point that I wanted to walk out of the theater, but I'm not a respected film cricket, so it wouldn't have been the spectacle I wanted. I did, however, audibly mutter "fuck that" when Leslie admits to Lizzie that she, in fact, won the game of poker she pretended she lost, because she wanted to keep the money for herself. There's just no way that Leslie's winnings were even a third of the Jaguar's value, so why would she lie?

Because Elizabeth is dumber than a sandbag, I suppose.

Elizabeth gives Leslie back her car and buys one of her own: a 3500-dollar used Mercury.

Then she drives back to New York and tries to recapture the magic of the final scene of Chungking Express, failing horribly.

What an awful film.