User Reviews

The film is all about mood. If you are not in it, you will not like the movie. My recommendation is to watch it at night, in bed, with no worries on your mind or things to do. It is not something really great, but it soothes the soul like one of those old road books.

The story itself is more of a three parter, each section detailing a mindset and the situations that define it. You see the hopeless romantic, the one person who let the other inside instead of just sticking to the outside, and for whom losing the other is worst than death; then there is the rebellious daughter that loves and hates her father until it's to late to do anything either way; and of course, the story of Nora Joneses and Jude Law's characters.

Bottom line: lay comfy in your bed and listen to the slow rhythms of the music while digesting the human nature presented in the film. In the end it is worth watching.

This is a film of contrasts. A good story let down by poor dialogue; some great acting as well as some mediocre and good direction marred by irritating and indiscriminate "motion blur" filming.

The film has the elements and sometimes the feel of a charming love story, a modern-day fairy tale. The gentleness and innocence of the two main characters is in sharp contrast to the world inhabited by the secondary characters, where addiction to alcohol, gambling, desperation and suicide are the order of the day.

Jude Law as Jeremy seems to have lost the plot. His half-hearted attempts at a Manchester accent are woeful. Why bother with the accent anyway? He is a coffee shop owner in NY, and his origins have no bearing whatsoever on the storyline. However, his natural charisma and his gentle demeanour do suit the role, and he pairs well with Norah Jones as Elizabeth.

As for the flaws; is there ever total silence outside in the street in NY at night? And would customers really give their house keys to the person behind the counter in a coffee shop, to be kept in a glass jar? And would customers ever be known not by name, but by what they eat? And is there anyone in Manchester actually called Jeremy? As for Norah Jones, although she is on screen for most of the film, she does not have a lot to do or say – which is just as well really. She spends most of her time watching in silent, doe-eyed admiration, as she is given a master class in acting by the "real" actors.

The *real" actors here are David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz. Strathairn gives a memorable, finely crafted performance as Arnie, who is a cop by day and an alcoholic barfly by night. Rachel Weisz as Sue Lynne his beautiful, wild, estranged wife makes full use of her short time on screen to create a wayward, tumultuous character at once sensuous, and sensitive. Between them they steal the show.

But gripes aside, the director does manage to create an appealing, if flawed, film. It's a mixed bag. It's good in parts.

This was a smart sweet movie. Very nicely done with some beautiful scenes! Majestic pictures really. And it had a nice story and some good characters with great performances specially by Rachel Weisz and Strathairn! It had good witty dialogs and had some funny moments. It's one of those movies that has everything to be good. Never Amazing, never something out of this world, but good! Makes you feel good after wards! But because of the editing and the great shots, this movie could have been far better than the average sweet smart movie.

The main reason why it's just good is because of the lead actress which was Norah Jones. And I'm very sorry to say she didn't convince me at all. It even became annoying at some points! And since she is narrating some bits and appearing in most of the movie.. it kinda ruined it a bit for me. It's really hard to comprehend why she was given the part. But if you can forget about her acting.. I think the movie is really good.

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.

Wong Kar Wai's English-language debut is a home run, thanks to his superior craft and thanks to the remarkable group of individuals he has brought together, from his star-studded cast to Ry Cooder on lead guitar and Darius Khondji as director of photography. Khondji is the lonesome lens man who made Pollack, Allen, Fincher, Boyle, Polanski, and Bertolucci look so fine, and he is at the top of his game as he makes Wong Kar Wai's trademark layered look shine like never before. Singer-songwriter Norah Jones' acting debut is impressive, as is Rachel Weisz' performance in the part of the Southern Belle, keeping the dialect coaches busy. Natalie Portman, cast against type, may be the prettiest face in Hollywood, but she tries very hard and, predictably, fails to come across as a trashy gambler. She even slips out of her fake accent twice: Once when she wakes up in bed with Norah Jones (understandable) and again when they split ("You're hopeless"). Similarly, Jude Law is unconvincing in the part of the philosophical bartender. I know everybody loves him, but I just don't see what they see. My money is on David Strathairn and his touching portrayal of Arnie, the quiet drunk. I wish they had kept his tab open a little longer and cut the lame Las Vegas leg of the script.

In one word: predictable. I'm sorry, I really did want to like this. After all, the Chinese Director - Wong Kar Wai – is famous in the world of independent World Cinema and this has been his long awaited first English language film. And of course the cast is both extremely beautiful and undeniably talented – just not at working opposite each other.

It has to be said: when Jude Law is good he's mind blowing, but when he's bad he's unwatchable. Unfortunately these days, more often then not, I cringe when he comes on the screen. It's such a shame, especially as he's so nice to look at, but rather then growing as an actor he seems to be becoming a caricature of himself. I mean, his character Jeremy is supposed to be a Mancuniann in New York – but he can't even pull that off believably! I was curious to see what Norah Jones would be like on the big screen. My verdict: stick to the singing. The first half an hour was painfully forced and not helped by Law's dry performance. It did get marginally better as Elizabeth (Jones' character) leaves Jeremy's blueberry pies behind and goes on a self-discovering journey across America, though this might be more due to a wonderful performance by her co-stars.

David Strathairn especially deserves recognition. His portrayal of alcoholic cop Arnie is superb. Unable to accept that his marriage to Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz) is over, he befriends Elizabeth when she takes on two waitressing jobs in his local bar and dinner. An argument with devastating results ensues, and we see Weisz at her best – ruthless and sexy yet vulnerable. Natalie Portman's performance as a crazy gambling addict is equally great, although her acting opposite Jones never felt comfortable.

Finally, Wai is renowned for his creative cinematography, and at least in that respect My Bluberry Nights didn't disappoint. Maybe if you watched this with the volume set on mute you'd see this as the masterpiece it's trying to be. But while tension can enhance a film, I felt like this was just full of confusion. Artistic indie flick or traditional Hollywood blockbuster? Well, neither really, just a lot of unnerving insecurity.

The Fan Carpet - www.thefancarpet.com

Wong Kar Wai, the Hong Kong auteur, has made his first movie all in English and set in the USA--and built around Grammy Award singer Norah Jones. More coherent than many of Wong's efforts, it's been accused of being a "trifle"--or is it just that the plot seems silly now that it's all clear and in English? Like all Wong's work, this is a film that's romantic, sad, and gorgeous to look at from first to last and full of strong, catchy pop-blues-country music (Ry Couder did the score). The beautiful Ms. Jones's character, variously known as Elizabeth, Lizzie, Beth, or Betty, turns up at a New York café run by Jeremy (Jude Law), a guy from Manchester, England, drenched in love-longing because her man has dumped her for somebody else. Jeremy has a jar full of keys from patrons, each with a story, and Lizzie gives him hers, hoping her boyfriend will pick them up again. Jeremy has his own lost love, Katya (Cat Power); she'll turn up later on just to say goodbye. Jeremy's keys stand for doors he himself doesn't want to close.

Though Lizzie's boyfriend never turns up, Jeremy and Lizzie begin to have late night chats and sugar orgies, she eating a piece of blueberry pie with ice cream--picking blueberry because that's the pie that's always left over at the end of the day.

There's a fight in the café, and Jeremy plays around with a surveillance camera, which he seems to use as a kind of diary. Soon he will be alone, and Lissie will be away.

This time instead of improvising as in the past, which among other things contributed to his last film, 2046, a kind of summation of his Chinese themes and characters, taking five years to finish, Wong made up his story, with Norah in mind, and then had it turned into a finished screenplay (subject to plenty of revisions, of course) by crime novelist Lawrence Block. This one had a low budget and took just a couple of months to make. Shooting time, that is. It really took a year to do the editing, but Wong had that finished, to everyone's surprise, just in time for My Blueberry NIghts to be shown as the opener at Cannes last year.

Like Wong's other films, this one encapsulates several different stories. The second one comes when Lizzie decides to "cross the street" to revisit Jeremy by the "longest way possible," which turns out to be a trip to Memphis and Nevada and points in between, thousands of miles and nearly a year--a time of self-discovery, no doubt (though she doesn't observably change), and a period to avoid the inevitable romance with Jeremy. Landing in Memphis Lizzie works at two jobs, saving up money to buy a car. At a bar she encounters the drama of the drunken cop Arnie Copeland (David Strathairn) and his estranged wife, Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz). Both are fine, acting their heads off in scenes heady with barroom dysfunction. For once, an on-screen drunk admits to going to Alcoholics Anonymous--and collecting a beginner's chip over and over and over. He throws the chips on the bar and they make a satisfying chink. But Arnie comes to a bad end, though Sue Lynne, despite rejecting him, keeps his tab open as she lights out for the territory. Through all of this Lizzie constantly sends Jeremy a stream of postcards that are a kind of intimate diary, and he desperately tries to track her down by phone and letter, without success.

Every young filmmaker dreams of making a road movie, Wong Kar Wai has said. Though he's now fifty, this is a kind of new beginning, or felt like one to him. But, he said, this movie isn't really a road movie; it's a vacation. And it's not about a journey, but about distance. Maybe the trip across the street for Lizzie is all a dream--one by Sam Shepherd, working with David Lynch. Sue Lynne gives Lizzie a generous donation for being Arnie's barmaid too, and she lights out for Nevada. There she's working at a gambling dive where she meets a young woman named Leslie (Nathalie Portman) who's a pro, and they wind up leaving town together. Eventually, Lizzie ends up back at Jeremy's café, and he's waiting for her.

Coming after As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Ashes of Time, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood For Love, and 2046, Wong's excursion into America is completely consistent and logical. Those who seem disappointed, may miss the ellipses and madcap improv of the earlier films, and may have failed to notice that they were full of pop novel gimmicks and romantic cuteness. Wong's sentimentality passes muster because of cryptic story lines, poetic voice-overs, hypnotic uses of music, and adventurous camera work--mostly by Christopher Doyle, here replaced by the half-French and wholly brilliant Darius Khondji --made infinitely rich by complex editing. My Blueberry Nights is full of criss-cross angles, fast overlaps, closeups so shallow atmospheric Americana may go unnoticed, till a lovely panorama flits by. Color is typically warm and dense. The effect is to make every frame a pleasure.

Reciting Wong Kar Wai's list of features brings home how he single-handedly made the Eighties and Nineties an exciting cinematic time, from the first days when you had to go to a theater on the edge of Chinatown, and then you watched badly subtitled Hong Kong prints found in esoteric video shops, to the time when Tarantino's Miramax label, Rolling Thunder, distributed Chungking Express in a good print with clear titles and the secret was out.

Maybe Wong never did anything better than Days of Being Wild, the first film in which he became truly himself. But what does it matter? The quintessential stylist, he cannot make a film that doesn't give rich aesthetic pleasure.

US opening date April 18, 2008.

Somebody said Wong Kar Wai's "My Blueberry Nights" is a poor imitation of his own prior works. I think it's half true. Although its smell and taste are awfully familiar, but, to me, those feeling always linger to your memory longer than any ordinary film just the same.

The film opens with Elizabeth (Norah Jones in her film debut) wandering into Jeremy's (Jude Law) coffee shop. On her side, she's just breaking up with her boyfriend. She's angry and exhausting. On his side, he's lonely and has heartache past. And he secretly fell in love with her. After one unforgettable night they had share, suddenly she decided to go for a road trip (to find "the meaning of life"). She met a lot of individual people who somehow exchange their emotion with her.

She met Arnie (David Strathairn), a cop who can't cope with a separation with his super sexy ex-wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz). She met a gambler, Leslie (Natalie Portman) who get used to lie to everybody including herself. Not until the truth is finally catch up with her. In the mean time, Jeremy is trying to locate her. He really wanted to find her and repeat that unforgettable night for the rest of his life.

After I watched first 10 minutes of the film, I wasn't so sure that is it the right choice to cast Norah as the lead. But after that, it got better (maybe it's because she looked calmer and decided to be a good listener). But the best acting in this film belongs to David Strathairn who plays this heartbreaking character so well that I wish I could do something for him.

This is Wong Kar Wai's first English-language film. For those who love "Chungking Express", "Days of Being Wild" or even "In the Mood for Love" might found this is rather disappointing. his usual trademark to produce dreamy atmosphere and create such a subtle narrative seems a little bit too obvious (and tacky). Without Christopher Doyle's collaboration, Darius Khondji's cinematography seems a little bit pale by comparison.

Disappointing doesn't necessary means bad. "My Blueberry Nights" is a good film created by one of the greatest director-poet living today. If you happens to know him only for this movie, lucky for you. Because you will find yourself completely falling in love for the first time with those amazing works he has created once you watch them.

A young woman, getting over a relationship, travels across America to earn money and see the country.

I found this to be hypnotic, soothing experience, much like In The Mood For Love. It really does set up an atmosphere that makes you feel like you're really there. I think it's a pretty hollow film, which has turned a lot of people off, but i think there's enough there on the surface. I think the film looked great - the colors and charming set design. Jones was pretty decent, Kar Wai wisely filling the film with interesting characters/actors so she doesn't have to carry the whole film. Natalie Portman seems a little miscast (she looks barely a day over 20 so i don't know why she plays characters out of her depth), but i found Strathairn and Rachel Weisz heartbreaking and Law hasn't been so appealing in years. A nice surprise considering my low expectations.

With My Blueberry Nights, Wong has effectively made an English-language Asian film. Keeping in step with his previous efforts, My Blueberry Nights is a movie that cares not about its plot or its characters. The characters are simple, stock figures; the plot similarly routine. Stories about heartbreak, abandoning wives, dying fathers, and other such tales have been well represented by the film and television medium over the years, rendering them irrelevant long ago. Even the main premise of a lonely soul going on a cross-country road trip to re-discover herself has been done many times before. But Wong isn't interested in such things: the plot and his characters are secondary to him. Wong purpose, as with his previous efforts, in particular In The Mood for Love and 2046, is to create a film that visually represents human emotions: feelings such as loneliness, heartbreak, longing, melancholy love. As with Wong's previous films, My Blueberry Nights does not aim to recreate reality or exist in any sort of realistic, naturalistic setting whatsoever. Wong's films take place in a fantasy world; an alternate reality in which characters talk in riddles and rhymes, moping for lost love and missed opportunities. Such is the world of In The Mood for Love, 2046, and now My Blueberry Nights as well.

Wong employs various elements in order to portray these feelings. First and foremost, his dreamy, floating-camera filming style, helmed by visionary cinematographer Darius Khondji, with Wong temporarily abandoning his equally talented regular cinematographer, Christopher Doyle. Kondji does an excellent job at emulating Doyle and Wong's unique mutual visual style, filling the frame with vivid colours – reds, oranges, greens, blues; using coloured in-frame natural lighting emulating from neons, fluorescents and other strong light sources; filming through objects such as panes of glass; and quite exquisite framing and composition. The floating, shallow-focus cinematography, colourful but muted, superbly evokes the melancholy longing that the characters feel. Other techniques Wong has used in previous films and uses again this time around are repeated use of mood-evoking songs on the soundtrack, for example.

For his English-language debut, Wong, who already has quite an air of prestige around him, managed to assemble a very strong cast. The weakest link and indeed what I felt was the film's biggest flaw is the casting of Norah Jones as the main character. I love her music but in her acting debut she is all right at best. Her wide-eyed innocence is felt but the performance as a whole is not nearly strong enough, especially as the lead performance, which is supposed to carry the film. A more experienced actress could have done wonders with the role, and indeed Wong's talented and experienced supporting cast members totally steal the show from Jones in their scenes with her together. First in line is Jude Law, whom I believe is unfairly criticized and who is actually quite a talented actor, plays his enigmatic character with charm and energy even though he, like everyone else, is suffering from loneliness, a broken heart and longing for the opportunities and dreams he missed out on. Next up are David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz, both of whom play a bitter couple caught in an endless loop of drama and sport strong Southern drawls. Both actors are in total command of their scenes; Strathairn playing melancholy and self-destructive while Weisz plays fiery and viciously angry. Finally we have Natalie Portman, who seems to be getting better and better at this as she goes along. Like the others she is in total control of her character, commanding all of her scenes and stealing the show from Jones. If Jones' performance is slightly lacking in personality, these four veteran cast members more than deliver the goods and make up for it with powerful, lively performances that provide the film with another level of interest beyond the sublime cinematography and direction.

My Blueberry Nights does not fall short of delivering that soft touch, that dreamy, bittersweet, spell-binding atmosphere we just love to sit in for a Kar-Wai movie for. We are floating on the waves of dark and lurid colours interplaying, moods changing from desperate to hope-inducing and from nostalgic to disillusioned. But the promise of something that will lead us back to the path of love turning round the corner the very next moment is never completely lost.

The fate of all relationships is present in the very first seconds of two people meeting each other, however, sometimes weeks, months, years have to pass by until they can own up to and live that predestination. Like in the case of Jeremy, an English restaurateur in New York and Lizzie, an undecided young girl from „Illusionland". They both need to start out on their own journey – either in a physical sense or, in Jeremy's case, emotionally – to find their way back to where they started.

Kar-Wai's movie is, as always, slow-paced, very emotional – every vibration of the spirit accentuated by the songs and lyrics of Norah Jones –, with situations not very likely to occur in everyday life. But is this not what we daydream about every stolen minute of our lives? Stolen from the mundane, soul-killing, automatized routine of our days.

Norah Jones' acting is better than you would think, while Jude Law is great as always. Smooth and charming. Makes you believe that a cute English accent (contrary to what is stated in the film, his is not Mancunian) can get you real privileges in the States.

Putting a musician (Nora Jones) in the lead was a real brave choice from Wong Kar Wai ... and one that didn't backfire! While he's not the first who's done that (see Björk and other singers turned actresses), he's movie does succeed.

Of course that is also an achievement of the other actors (such as Jude Law etc.) and the really good camera work seen here. One thing that might annoy you though is the fact that it slow moving (at times it seems not to move at all) and also seems to have no directions it's heading whatsoever. If that doesn't put you off thought, you'll see a pretty good drama/movie :o)

The script relies on several original elements in comparison to other movies about the spiritual search of the main character, like the perspective of the bar waitress, also the emotional evolution of the character is not so sharp and extreme but rather slow (probably too much) and basic, she takes her time to discover and to be discovered, focusing on more simple goals. The worst thing of it, to me, was a total lack of chemistry among the actors. The dialogs, so filled with metaphors that confuse, that do not inspire admiration towards the characters but imbalance for the lack of clarity that makes you doubt if both are thinking the same thing.

Natalie Portman…it made me suffer to listen to her speak with such a decadent accent, representing a trite personage who does not manage to gain affect from the audience despite her tragical past.

It is a good movie, with many good individual elements, a promising script and an excellent cast that, in my opinion, do not achieve the necessary compatibility.

Working with a gleaming American cast mostly consisting of exceptional actors, Wong Kar- Wai employs his expected colorful, almost fetishistic visual richness, depicted essentially by glitzy blows of vivid colors in close union to embody the moody impressions of light and tint on people and objects, in this John Rechy-esquire drill concerning a host of lovelorn people, beginning with Jude Law, who runs a café in New York City. Norah Jones finds out from him that her boyfriend has dined in the café with another woman. Jones is furious and leaves him. She gives her keys to Law, in case her ex-boyfriend comes to collect them. She returns to the café several times, and the two become close. She impulsively begins wandering the country, starting by taking a bus to Memphis, Tennessee. She occupies herself as a coffee shop waitress by day and bartender by night, to save money to buy a car. She sends postcards to Law without telling where she is while he tries to find out by calling all the restaurants in the area to no avail.

Kar-Wai is more at ease in the crowded urban muddle of New York and among the seamy city stone fabric of Memphis than he is when the episodic story streams to the petrified Nevada desert, where he hastens through the road scenes in sped-up motion and without the elation in which he wallows the rest of the time. However, the more the drama is enclosed, the more restless Kar-Wai seems to get and his helming of the mood vibrates with romantic passion. Everything is beheld drenched in saturated colors in the company of a stimulating liveliness.

The movie is by no means less than eye-catching and viscerally pleasurable, but the script by Kar-Wai and, of all people, Lawrence Block, the author of corny crime novels like The Burglar on the Prowl, is an combination of segments that run alongside clichés and intermittently feel more affectionate than that. David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman have their shining moments, in particular Weisz in an inebriated admission concerning her marriage to the efficiently gloomy Strathairn, which Weisz conveys in a wringing wet jumble of rage, disillusionment and guilt, and least of which Portman's memorable rendering of her superfluous role as a poker player in a tricky gambling situation. However, Norah Jones herself stays an uncomprehending writing surface on which we are to see whatever we end up seeing.

This is a typical Kar Wai Wong film.Even some of the music is borrowed from In the mood for love.I have long been a Kar Wai Wong film fan.This is his first English language film.But the Kar Wai Wong style is still there. This movie seems to have met before.The Rachel Weisz part make me think of Texas,Paris the moment I heard the monologue.The idea crossing the America is not fresh either.As to Norah Jones,her role is just like Amélie.But there's something sweet in all these.Unlike Amélie who tries to help others,Elizabeth is merely a witness to all those things,aiming at finding a way to say goodbye to her failure in love.When she finally think herself prepared to say goodbye,the person who broke her heart is not there any more,and it's time to start a new relationship with Jude Law If you want to see something serious,I'm sorry,you may be disappointed.But if you just enjoy the atmosphere in a romantic movie,you will be satisfied.But it doesn't mean that it's a popcorn movie.Apart from the typical Kar Wai Wong style scenes,music,there's something to think over.You will think of something,think of your own love story in this story. The performances are wonderful.Rachel Weisz makes you into the mood the moment she walks into the bar.David Strathairn is wonderful.Natalie Portman makes you know that she is a real actress with great talent(maybe someone will be uncomfortable to her changes).Jude Law and Norah Jones together gives you a sense of warm,and they are really suitable in the roles of bar assistant or boss.Kar Wai Wong makes Faye Wong transform from an excellent singer to an excellent performer.Norah Jones's music is wonderful, and her performance is surprising to me,succeed in a good listener and witness The music,cinematography,etc are typical Kar Wai Wong style.Kar Wai Wong loves to put jazz in his movie,and Jones's vocal makes you exciting at the beginning of the movie.everything is magnified,in order to show the beauty hiding in the fine points.The light is a story teller in this movie,maybe weired but fascinating.Kar Wai Wong borrowed a piece of music from The Motorcycle Diaries,indicating that Elizabeth has managed to get rid of the failure in love. It may not be the best Kar Wai Wong movie,but it's enjoyable,and it's as sweet as blueberry pies,you will find it hard to resist

Now I'm all for a film from back in the day when Jude Law was in his swarthy, sexy phase (and had a full head of hair...) but, sadly, even that cannot rescue the rather ponderous romantic drama. Norah Jones is recovering from a broken relationship; she stops by Law's café for some pie and soon they chat. Next, she has moved on and he is trying to track her down via New York, Memphis and finally Nevada where she alights on a penniless Natalie Portman. It's all a bit haphazard; what little structure there is, doesn't really make this anything better than a bizarrely soulless road movie with loads of relationship fall-out and navel-gazing. It's got a great soundtrack, though.

This film is brilliant. So subtle and well crafted is the storytelling. The cast is perfect. If you like Norah Jones and her music you will absolutely love this movie. It is about human emotion, growth, hurt,longing,finding inner peace. Every emotion she brings to her songs Norah Jones and the rest of the cast bring to this movie. Every character represents another "Life Lesson" that Elizabeth (Norah Jones character) needs to meet to bring her to the peace she needs to find. Or, at least, an understanding of who she is that she can be happy with. Which makes the ending such a wonderful beginning.

Jude Law is his usual charming English embracing persona. Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman achieve so much with such small supporting roles. David Strathairn is perfectly cast and is just an incredible actor. The director did an incredible job of pacing the film to let each moment of reflection absorb into the audience. The photography was just as exquisite in its detail and subtle importance of meaning.

Where this film really succeeds is in not falling into the Hollywood pitfalls of so many indie movies where the the film becomes brooding or cynical. Throughout her journey Elizabeth finds herself; her best self. Like her music, you will sometimes feel the melancholia she feels, sometimes feel the hope and desire, the longing for love or the want of confidence in one's self. But after all the reflections, in the end you will be happy with the experience. The only thing missing from this film was a great Van Morrison song like "in the Midnight" or "Someone like you" to add to the atmosphere. I don't think i have seen any of Kar Wai Wong's {the director} films but I look forward to seeing them all now. Start to finish, this movie is brilliant.

This is not usually the kind of film I would pick up but I was intrigued that it was Wong Kar Wai who directed and that Lawrence Block had a hand in the writing. Not sure if this should be called a romantic comedy, probably not as its not very funny, nor is is particularly romantic. I guess there are romantic notions, deliberations over whether to have the infamous blueberry pie, the rather charming business regarding customer keys left at the diner and other little things made rather a lot of. Main thing, this is really good to look at. As was to be expected this is very colourful with the director making the most of neon and reflections. Not afraid to shoot wondrous close-ups irrelevant to the dialogue. Which brings us to Lawrence Block, whose work I have read rather a lot of. Apart from his hard edged villainous stuff (and even within some of those) he can switch effortlessly to believable, small time dialogue, bit like how Tarantino does rather heavy-handedly. Here the actors seem to have had a hand in it too, so much comes across as improvised and no the worse for that. Its just this doesn't really go anywhere, not really, but it is not an unpleasant way to spend some time.

Wong Kar Wai first American film is an interesting try by this great director but something gets lost in the translation in terms of narrative and story telling that makes this film a noble and failed attempt by him. The story really does not hold much water in the way it's presented and the narrative feels a bit awkward and unfinished in what's going on right in front of you, not to mention the horrible lines of dialog that comes out of the mouths of most of the characters. Nora Jones does give an interesting first performance and she is quite good but she is blown off the screen by her seasoned co stars who give much more potent performances than the script allows. The best of these performances goes to Rachel Weisz and David Straitharn, who gives much more complexity to their underwritten characters than they should have and if they both had a real script to work with, their story would have been a great movie in itself but the script holds them back like a anchor and you can see that they are trying to keep a straight face while saying some of the lame dialog from the script. Jude Law is really not in the movie much at all and Natalie Portman is the worst served by all of this because despite her up hill battle to give a good performance with how unfocused the script is, she does not have much of a story to work with.

I feel bad for Wong Kar Wai, he could have made a much better film than this, especially with the great talent he had working for him but the script is what killed this film and no amount of great talent could have saved it.