Does One Sour Blueberry Ruin the Whole Bunchl?
Laura Bailey
Props to Norah Jones for her first acting attempt. However, the formula still holds: no lessons + no experience = no success. Jones’ entrance as an estranged ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth, was painful. After finding out her boyfriend of five years has left her for another woman, Jones throws herself into the film, not to mention on Jude Law, with a poor performance of desperation. Looking like a deer caught in the headlights, Jones overwhelms her first scene with too much dialogue and not enough expression.
Thank God director Won Kar Wai chose Jude Law (Jeremy) to open the film. Law’s chaotic yet cool demeanor trumps Jones’ awkward attitude in each of their scenes together. Just as he balances phone orders and dishes, Law also smoothes over Jones’ patchy performance.
Note though how Wai introduces Jones’ role in the film: a phone call. She is the one Law is talking to on the phone in the opening scene. This indirect introduction sets Jones’ role for the rest of the film: a back seat in every scene.
There is always a superior actor who steals the limelight from Jones. And thank goodness for the rescue. The film overall pulls through from the efforts of the “supporting” actors: Jude Law, David Strathaim, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman – all “supporting” (aka trumping) Jones throughout.
I found the storyline choppy. One minute I am watching Jones abruptly walk out on Law at his restaurant, but then in the next minute she is in Tennessee writing back to Law in New York City. I began to think Jones’ character was off-balance. I was proven wrong when I discovered it was the other characters that provide the imbalance to Jones’ story.
The best portion of the film (and strongest performances) occurred in the middle. Jones leaves New York City to gallivant around the country and find her independent self. During her first stop in Memphis, Tennessee, she meets a police officer, David Strathaim, who is a recovering from a broken marriage and alcoholism. It’s probably more appropriate to say he’s in denial of both. Strathaim’s monologue about the chips he carries around exemplifies his weakness in life: inability to see problems and make a change. Strathaim brilliantly climaxes his performance by holding his wife, Rachel Weisz, at gunpoint and demanding her to stay with him. Strathaim encompasses consistent body language of slump defeat throughout the segment. The story only roles back to Jones when Strathaim tips his bill in the end. He reminds Jones to “buy a nice car” before ironically ending his life in a car crash just moments later – in the same spot that he met his wife.
The second best performance goes to Rachel Weisz for her portrayal of Strathaim’s floozy wife. Weisz masters the idyllic white-trash, unkempt woman who is starving for an escape from life. Add a thick southern drawl, a screaming fit over her dead-husband’s bar tab, and a curbside confession to Jones and you have an intensely elegant new dimension to the actress.
The rawness of Weisz’s epiphany monologue to Jones provides an explanation for lovelessness that I have rarely encountered in film: suffocation. Weisz gushes to Jones why she left Strathaim. She justifies that her husband loved her too much. There was no discipline to the relationship. There was no balance. Weisz felt stronger without him than with him. Weisz admits that she never thought she would miss the obsessive love. But now that it’s gone, she wishes that she had never let it go. Perhaps unconsciously, Weisz outlines the need for a balance of give and take in all relationships.
I was left pondering on this scene long after it passed, so I have no idea how Jones wound up as a waitress near California. However, my focus was regained when Jones is seen waiting on a gambling party which includes Natalie Portman.
Portman’s character was more of a disappointment than her portrayal of the character. I am still dumbfounded as to why such a popular actress would have chosen the monotonous role of a punk-meets-gypsy girl who has a keen ability to decipher truths from lies. What role did Portman’s character even serve to the storyline? I only see additional variables rather than definitive conclusions. From Portman’s performance, Jones is seen as a disappointingly gullible but finally with her coveted car.
Portman’s exit monologue was probably the biggest disappointment to the movie. I was hoping she would serve as the character who did the wrong thing in the end. I wish Portman had lied and not given Jones the car. Had Portman stuck to the label of the true bitch, the film would have had a more realistic undertone. Instead, Wai turns his characterization to the romantic idyllic: all actions can be justified because people are basically good. If only this were true, the world would be such a better place.
So to answer the question – no, one blueberry does not ruin the whole bunch. Norah Jones was plucked early and replaced throughout by stronger actors. The bitter taste at the beginning of the film grew progressively sweeter by the middle, and the overall after taste left me satisfied but not craving for a second helping. I rate this taste test an overall B.
(My Blueberry Nights. Director: Wong Kar Wai. Producers: Jean-Louis Piel, Wang Wei, Wong Kar Wai, Jacky Pang. Screenwriters: Lawrence Block, Wong Kar Wai. Cast: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathaim, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz.)
