{grate 2} Renowned Chinese director Wong Kar Wai makes his first foray
into American cinema with “My Blueberry Nights,” a sweet but unnoticeable blip
on the radar of Wong’s resume, which usually produces heated, sultry operatic
cinema that sweat the palms and pump the heart.
But “My Blueberry Nights,” Wong’s first American full-length
feature, fails at achieving either, slamming together a motley acting crew that
limply wades through scenes. Veterans Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Natalie
Portman make memorable showings as worldly, engaging characters, but Wong fails
to apply to them the milky, breathless buzz he haloed his other films’
characters with — “Blueberry Nights” is a mashup that was never meant to be.
Maybe it’s the leading lady that sinks the entire ship.
Pop/jazz singer Norah Jones plays Lizzie, a wide-eyed wanderer that semi-woos
Jeremy (Law) in New York before going on the U.S. waitressing circuit, serving
joints as far as Memphis and Las Vegas in an effort to fully shed the
heartbreaking memories she left in the Big Apple.
Jones wears the cutesy role as lightly as cashmere, smoothed
to the point that it’s meant to go unnoticed. Her muted aura slips even further
under, as Wong’s glossy direction and imagery massages the screen with neon lights and glimmering colors.
Lizzie and Jeremy postcard each other as she journeys,
dangling a fat piece of hopeful bait that Wong will consummate the pair’s
eye-fucking at the beginning of the film. In fact, most of “Blueberry Nights”
is a tease, stringing Lizzie job to job, throwing hapless characters in her way
as she flaps about trying to find some modicum of emotion. It’s twice the
foreplay, half the sex.
Thirty minutes into the film, Wong adds some much-needed
spice with Sue Lynne (Weisz), a hot-blooded Southern belle that wrings her
ex-husband (a gracefully sullen David Strathairn) around her finger before he
drunk-drives into a tree.
Sue Lynne proceeds to hide in the bottle and confide in
waitress Lizzie, whom she spouts pearls and nuggets to about love’s dark
recesses. Weisz handles the twangy accent with a beautiful twitter, even as she
lays face down on the bar counter in drunken stupors. Lizzie leaves tending bar
to Sue Lynne for casino waitressing in
where she meets Leslie (Portman), another spitfire beauty.
Wong trashes up Portman for the poker-playing Leslie,
butchering and bleaching her hair before slapping on hoop earrings for an
all-out, hoed-up look. Portman plays the part admirably, throwing around
sizeable handfuls of sass that liven an otherwise fizz-less film.
With “2046” Wong mastered his lush style with a sweeping
look and arresting score. “Blueberry Nights” succeeds with the first but
falters with the latter. The film proudly wears Wong’s visual style of blurred
lights and smeared neons. But the soundtrack proves too sparse, employing Cat
Power for an underwhelming match with an already subdued set of characters (the
musician also makes a modest performance as Katya, Jeremy’s old flame).
The intense, fever-filled pitch of Wong’s previous films is
neutered in “Blueberry Nights,” where everyone is sweet but nobody is sweet
together. But it’s no fault to Wong; Jones falls terribly flat as an actress,
whereas Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung steamed up the screen in “In the Mood for
Love.”
As a romantic drama, “Blueberry Nights” commands a snug,
cozy look at broken love and melted hearts. And although Wong sustains the
somber, despondent alienation that he skillfully pours over all his films, this
one lacks the sexual bite that makes his works so engaging.
