At times, My Blueberry Nights doesn't even seem like a movie. It reminded my of a first novel by an English major, in love with the tone of their own writing. Believing that film is a visual medium, I often don't comment much on the script, but I have to say that there's really no way this could have been a good movie. The screenplay is so stupid and self-consciously arty (is that word?) that no director, not Wong Kar-Wai, not Ingmar Bergman, not Francis Ford Coppola, could have made it work.
That's not to say the only flaw is the script, but we'll get to that later. The movie is three different stories concerning the wandering Elizabeth (singer Norah Jones in her first movie) who is recovering from a break-up. She stars in New York, and forges a friendship with Jeremy (Jude Law) a British guy who owns a café. He falls in love with her, and she gets close to him, but she's not ready to commit. Although she already has a job, Elizabeth can't sleep at night, so she gets another job as a bartender. Is she aware that if she really can't sleep, she'd be a hallucinating and dead in about a week? Anyway, while at the bar, she observes the very end of a breakup between Arnie (David Strathairn, who gives the best performance in the movie) and Lynne (Rachel Weisz). Heading to Nevada, she makes friends with gambler Leslie (Natalie Portman) who lies a lot.
The movie has an incredible number of obvious stupid metaphors- the blueberry pie of the title, a bar tab, a car. It also has numerous ridiculous scenes that would never ever happen in real life. At one point, a character pulls a gun in a bar and threatens to kill someone, and nearly pulls the trigger. The next day, he's back in the bar as if nothing happened. Right. I'd certainly want to come back to that bar with that guy as a patron!
Not only that, but Norah Jones is frankly not a good actress. She doesn't even come off as a professional one, often seeming fake.
This movie is like spending ninety minuets with an overly snobby and pretentious high school student who writes poetry at Starbucks. I was surprised there wasn't an Alanis Morissette song over the credits.
My Blueberry Nights (2007)