I watched My Blueberry Nights last night finally. It is Wong Kar-Wai’s first English language movie. The movie opened the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, but did not see a US release until April 4, 2008. Because this is LA, and we actually get the Limited Release movies right away, I didn’t make it to see it in the theaters before it was gone. So I had to wait until this past Tuesdays DVD release.
In the tradition of many of his other films, this is a story of love. Wong Kar-Wai describes it as “a story of a woman who takes the long route instead of the short one to meet up with the man she loves.” (from wikipedia)
The movie is still shot in the way of his earlier films, despite the break from his long-time cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Full of sensuous colors and saturated hues.
The movie got very mixed reviews during its theatrical release…but I enjoyed it. The story was a little disjointed at times (moreso than usual), but that may be more of a symptom of writing in a second language (even though he co-wrote with a native english speaker). Norah Jones did a decent job acting, for her first time. The story behind her casting is that Wong Kar-Wai had her specifically in mind for the role and had to convince her to do the role.
Here is the UK trailer (embedding was disabled for the US version):
