My Blueberry Nights

Despite the bad reviews it’s been getting, MBN is an artistically beautiful love movie with a strong feeling of gripping loneliness and complexity throughout the plot: in which the main character took the long road instead of the short one to find her love.

Norah Jones played as Elizabeth who coincidentally found out from Jeremy (Jude Law), a cafe owner, about her boyfriend’s affair. Their next few meetings after grew love between them but Beth needed to make sure how she felt first before she embarked into a journey of a new love. So, after a last kiss with Jeremy, Rachel set off, leaving her keys with Jeremy: which then he kept with many other keys accidentally left there, keys with lots of stories behind them, so Jeremy said.

Working double shift to save for a car, on the road, she met with Arnie, a cop with drinking problems who could not forget his wife, Sue Lyne. When later in desperation, Arnie killed himself, Beth in turn comforted the the wife, who despite her saying that she no longer loved her husband, now grieving at her wit’s end.

In the next place where the bus took her, her path then crossed with a gambling gal, Leslie’s. They then made a bet: Beth had to lend her savings to Leslie which would be returned if she won. But if she lost, Beth would get her Jaguar. So Leslie lost and Beth was asked to drive her to Las Vegas. There Leslie planned to meet her father, also a gambler. Despite her outgoing personality, now we could know how Leslie was so lonely inside. She once vowed not to trust anyone but cards. Even when she got a call that her old man was severely ill, she refused to come, afraid of being tricked by him once more. However, it turned out that Leslie’s lost this bet: when she finally chose to come, the old man had passed away.

All the turmoils on the road finally brought Elizabeth back to Jeremy.

Jones’ inexperience in acting became her advantage here as she played a passive in-the-background role, observing other characters. This way, the watchers were led to plunge deeper into the emotional turmoils of the player.

For the first English film directed by Wong Kar Wai, My Blueberry Nights is amazing, especially in his choice of shooting angle which brought more the feeling of longing in this movie.