Review of My Blueberry Nights (2007) by Johanna S — 02 Feb 2009

Wong Kar Wai either believes too much in his power to create romance out of thin air, or he thought his actors could do great beyond the given material, who knows? All I do know, is that MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS is a terribly dull and poorly conceived film.

The funny thing about this film is that Jude Law and Natalie Portman fit perfectly into WKW's world of moods. They do a great job here and surprised me enough to hope for a revival in both their careers. O, but that pesky Norah Jones, she was as boring to look at as a paper doll. Everyone, besides Law and Portman, was awful, and I can only blame that on a lazy and lofty director.

I'd like to think this film was meant to be a cozy confection of sweets and romance but c'mon he can do a lot better than this. I wouldn't put this past a chubby film school graduate or even a Nancy Myers kind of filmmaker but the fact that a director can sit back and make an American debut with nothing more than cliches perpetuated by tired use of his own film style- it's a travesty.

Go back home, rethink things, get rid of Darius Kondji (the man can light but his lenses capture not an ounce of Doyle's humanity), and forget Hollywood. Whatever you have to do WKW, never make this kind of movie again.

(Perhaps, this is the work of a genius. He made an amateur film student's homage to himself before anyone else could. That sonuvabitch, he's thought of it all.).