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My Blueberry Nights (2008) DVD Review
My Blueberry Nights (2008) DVD Credits:
My Blueberry Nights (2008) Directed by:
Wong Kar Wai
My Blueberry Nights (2008) Written by:
Wong Kar Wai, Lawrence Block
My Blueberry Nights (2008) Cast:
Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Norah Jones, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey
My Blueberry Nights (2008) Released by:
StudioCanal
Region:
1
My Blueberry Nights (2008) DVD Release Date:
30th June 2008
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My Blueberry Nights (2008) Synopsis:

Norah Jones stars as a young woman who travels across America to find the true meaning of love, encountering offbeat characters along the way.

My Blueberry Nights (2008) DVD Review:

Wong Kar Wai was one of those rare successful foreign film director who had never really brought this success to Hollywood. My Blueberry Nights marks Wong Kar Wai’s first English-language film, but not much else has changed. Nobody can make the claim that Miramax or Hollywood affected Wong Kar Wai, because My Blueberry Nights feels like many other Wong Kar Wai films. It is a film about sadness, loneliness, and finding hope. There is a beautiful melancholy to the slow and visually emphasized filmmaking of Wong Kar Wai, and this film is no exception.

My Blueberry Nights is lushly photographed and often feels like nearly every sequence is filled with several slow motion shots. Slow motion shots of people talking, or sleeping, may not be as exciting as slow motion you might see in an action film, with Will Smith hurtling through the air shooting a gun, but there is a mesmerizing beauty to the photography in My Blueberry Nights. The plot is extremely simple, and ultimately it feels as though the pace could shift and suddenly there would be enough material for a short film, but My Blueberry Nights takes time to allow us to seep in and truly engage the characters and their emotions. This takes time in order to happen naturally, and that seems to be the point.

Norah Jones sets her singing career aside to play the leading lady. She is an unfortunate young woman who has just had her heart broken. Upon questioning an amiable diner owner, played by Jude Law, the young woman discovers her lover has been cheating on her. The simple café owner gives the young woman a beautiful speech about the blueberry pie at his café. Every day the apple pie, the cheesecake, and several others are eaten or at least somewhat appreciated, but the blueberry pie is always untouched. There is nothing wrong with the pie, but it keeps getting passed over. Each night after this story the young woman returns to the diner at the end of the evening to appreciate a piece of the otherwise unappreciated pie. This is a beautiful metaphor, because who among us hasn’t felt like a blueberry pie. This is all it takes to relate to the young woman, who then decides to go on a journey that takes her away from the blueberry pie.

As she sets out to forget the lost love in her life she meets an assortment of people, each containing altogether separate subplots that take us temporarily away from her inevitable reunion with the perfect pie and its owner. On her journey she comes across a gambler (Natalie Portman) who takes her on a journey to Vegas to face her father. She also encounters another woman (Rachel Weisz) who is dealing with her own romantic issues which she confides to our protagonist.

Certainly this is not the best film of Wong Kar Wai, but it isn’t terrible. It is a hopeful and dreamlike romantic drama. Essentially three short stories that seem to have been woven together through one central character, it may be a little thin on plot, but it is still a beautiful film. The DVD contains a making-of featurette and a Q&A with the famed director.

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My Blueberry Nights (2008) DVD review written by: Ryan Izay

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