My Blueberry Nights (2007)

A young woman takes a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love while encountering a series of offbeat characters along the way.

Director:

Kar Wai Wong

Writers:

Kar Wai Wong (screenplay), Lawrence Block (screenplay),

Stars:

Jude Law, Norah Jones, Chad R. Davis

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jude Law	...	Jeremy
Norah Jones	...	Elizabeth
Chad R. Davis	...	Boyfriend (as Chad Davis)
Katya Blumenberg	...	Girlfriend
John Malloy	...	Diner Manager
Demetrius Butler	...	Male Customer
Frankie Faison	...	Travis
David Strathairn	...	Arnie
Adriane Lenox	...	Sandy
Rachel Weisz	...	Sue Lynne
Benjamin Kanes	...	Randy
Cat Power	...	Katya (as Chan Marshall)
Michael Hartnett	...	Sunglasses
Natalie Portman	...	Leslie
Michael May	...	Aloha

Storyline

Elizabeth's heart is broken. For solace, she drops in late at night a few times at Jeremy's diner for blueberry pie a la mode; they talk. Once, he watchers her sleep, her head on the counter. Abruptly, she leaves New York City to get away from her pain. She works a couple of jobs in Memphis. There, a heart-broken cop is drinking himself into oblivion, his ex occasionally showing up where he drinks and Lizzy works. Then, she's in Nevada, working at a casino where she uses her savings (she wants a car) to stake Leslie, a busted gambler, in a high rollers' game. After, Beth drives Leslie to Vegas where Leslie's estranged father lives. Broken relationships. What about Jeremy?

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Plot Keywords:

casino | nevada | new york city | blueberry pie | love | 

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Taglines:

How do you say goodbye to someone you can't imagine living without?

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including violence, drinking and smoking

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [es] Official site [uk]

Country:

Hong Kong China France

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 November 2007 (France)

Also Known As:

El sabor de la noche

Filming Locations:

Caliente, Nevada, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$74,146 (USA) (4 April 2008)

Gross:

$866,778 (USA) (11 July 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Block 2 Pictures, Jet Tone Production, Lou Yi Ltd.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Neither Norah Jones or the Director like blueberry pie.

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Quotes

Elizabeth: So what's wrong with the Blueberry Pie?
Jeremy: There's nothing wrong with the Blueberry Pie, just people make other choices. You can't blame the Blueberry Pie, it's just... no one wants it.
Elizabeth: Wait! I want a piece.

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Connections

Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Episode dated 12 April 2008 (2008)

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Soundtracks

"Yumeji's Theme"
(Harmonica Version)
Performed by Chikara Tsuzuki
Written and Arraged by Shigeru Umebayashi
Courtesy of Polystar Co. Ltd.
Published by Emotion Co. Ltd. / Fun House Music Publishing Inc.
Internationally administerd by BMG Music Publishing

User Reviews

Cream Flowing Over Magnolia Blueberries

Wong is one of our three greatest living filmmakers.

He has transformed imagination for a planet. When real histories are written, artists like this will be appreciated for what they begin, giants compared to politicians who can only try to end things.

His last four films were transformative. Now he tries something outside his realm of mastery.

Like his main character, he has decided to travel the US in search of love. Also like his main character, he doesn't care about the story, only the afterglow. Its the mood that matters. In his previous films, he literally works without a script, creating an obvious vacuum where the story would be.

Here, he simply adopts a story that is so vacuous it leaves a similar hole. With a lesser artist, you would actually pay attention to the story and wonder about it. I suggest you simply ignore it, providing it with no more semiotic weight than the doorknobs which are so carefully photographed.

The idea here is simple: he finds a woman who by herself evokes a mood. He's done this before, and found creatures whose screen presence melts boundaries between stones allowing transparent slipperage. In this case, its Norah Jones, who does have a charm. His key image is of her drunk asleep on a diner counter with crumbs of delicious pastry on her full lips.

The way he's chosen to carry her image is through her songs, which contain a deceptive tension of confident tentativeness. This is a woman who is intensely unsettled and so is settled in herself. Jude Law plays a sort of urban domestic who prepares and waits, simply waits and draws her back.

In between the crumbs and the kiss are adventures with two women played by Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. They are placed as outer bounds on two sides so that our character's stone can slip home. One is remorsefully constrained by neediness, the other guiltily unconstrained. Both lose men, but not our heroine.

Christopher Doyle is not present on this, and its obvious that it is part of the risk Wong is taking: new country, new language, new mode for moodiness, new crew altogether. Different sorts of lingering and saturation.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.