A script with terminal shortcomings – wincingly winsome, ferally fey – is negotiated by brave actors picking their way through the minefield.
Comment
02/22/08
My Blueberry Nights (2008)
47 %
Reviews Counted: 100 Fresh: 47 Rotten:53 Average Rating: 5.5/10
Consensus:
Though well filmed, My Blueberry Nights is a mixed bag of dedicated performers working with thin material.
Rated: 12A
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Theatrical Release: 22-02-2008
Synopsis: With his first English-language film, beloved Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai's touch loses none of the seductive luster and magic that made his Chinese films so popular. MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS follows the fortunes of Elizabeth (Norah Jones), who after having been left by her boyfriend, sets... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Screenwriter: Wong Kar-Wai, Lawrence Block
Producer: Wong Kar-Wai
Composer: Ry Cooder
Screenwriter: Wong Kar-Wai, Lawrence Block
Producer: Wong Kar-Wai
Composer: Ry Cooder
Reviews
Top Critic
Narratives and places are secondary to the dreamy, bitter-sweet tone Wong is so keen to evoke, and with which, like a scent one might spray on too liberally, he saturates every scene.
02/22/08
Top Critic
An awful banality invades; principally in the conversations between restaurant manager Law and his lovelorn customer, played by the singer Norah Jones. Law struggles to bring his nice-guy northerner to life.
02/22/08
Top Critic
Away from home, Wong is on far-from-vintage form. But he still speaks the seductive language of longing with tactile tenderness, and draws out a natural performance from Jones. Worth a look, if not quite one to fall for.
02/22/08
Wong Kar Wei brings a first-timer's vision of America - the lurid neons and flashing subway trains are beautifully captured - but any emotional heart, largely thanks to Lawrence Block's dull script - remains resolutely unexplored.
02/22/08
Stunning photography and Wong's formidable directing abilities cannot salvage this emotionally empty exercise in style.
02/22/08
Top Critic Top Critic
Far from a disaster, but it does feel like a footnote. It’s difficult to see why the great director and very talented performers worked so hard to deliver such thin material.
02/22/08
Top Critic
Wong Kar Wai's English language debut is gorgeously shot, but it's let down by a tedious script, paper-thin characters and some dodgy performances.
02/21/08
For all its delicious moments, though, you can't help feeling there are a couple of ingredients missing from this frustratingly insubstantial confection.
02/19/08
Top Critic
Wong Kar Wai's American debut is as gorgeously filmed as you'd expect, but it's also surprisingly mopey and downbeat for a story about love.
02/11/08
Visually his film looks stunning on a giant festival screen, but the links between characters and stories require large leaps of faith.
10/27/07
Top Critic
My Blueberry Nights proves Norah Jones isn't ready for a movie career quite yet.
07/08/08
It's not Kar-Wai's best work, but cast Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in the leads, toss in subtitles and some of the same dissenters may be calling it his latest masterpiece.
07/06/08
The story had promise but it ends up being half baked by a director who wants to show off that he went to film school.
06/08/08
My Blueberry Nights plays much like a dream; different vignettes fade into each other ... [but] nothing ever quite adds up.
06/04/08
Wong's Hong Kong efforts are steeped in romanticism, but here, something clearly got lost in translation.
05/28/08
My Blueberry Nights at any length doesn't begin to answer the question why Jones, who seems nice in a bland, girl next door way, would ever be tapped to star in a movie.
05/22/08
It's essentially a gloriously romantic film made by a very romantic filmmaker who can see beauty where none supposedly exists.
05/21/08
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