My Blueberry Nights (2007)

 

Genre: Romance/ Drama

Time: 1h 51mins

Director: Wong Kar-wai

Quick Summary: A young lonely woman takes a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love while encountering a series of off-beat characters along the way.

The beginning had me fooled into thinking this was going to be a romance film...

You know I had very high hopes considering the guy who directed this also directed In The Mood For Love, but this ended up being very disappointing to me. The beginning of this film starts up really sweet with a sort of cheesy start to a cute match-up, with lots of scenes of them hanging out and getting to know each other. Then it sort of switches it up by sending the girl on a journey to find herself a new life, which could be an interesting film, but not when you've set up for such a cute romance. 

I really don't think I found anyone interesting, not even the main girl. Everyone felt more like the basic archetypes, here's your divorced drunk woman, here's your depressed man drunk, here's your charming English man. Nobody really goes any deeper than the surface level. Makes this film a lot more dull and shallow. 

As soon as it all changed from the romance, I honestly lost interest in this and it didn't really gain it until around the last 20 minutes, only because it was a slight change in story. But even then it wasn't fully there. I think if hadn't been for Natalie Portman, my interest wouldn't have even been gained. She was really the only good actress and it was very obvious when she was paired up with the main girl. 

This did have some very pretty lighting and moody ambience so I will give it credit there. Lots of reds and greens with splashes of neon every so often. Which made for some really nice visuals when they were put upon the actors in some of the scenes. During the bar scenes or some of the more depressing scenes, I will admit this also helped with feeling the mood it was trying to put across. However I'm not sure about the bizarre Vaseline filter it put up, or that it looks like they put the contrast filter up way too much.

I see hints of what Wong Kar-wai films usually are like, but this feels like someone tried to imitate it, and poorly too. The problem is, it drives away from a seemingly potentially cute romance that might have had some deeper emotional moments, and to a drunken divorced couple bitching, and then to a random woman who can't trust anyone.

 I have no care for the middle of this, which can be put down to either terrible actors or just terrible writing. By the end of this, I was just left disappointed with the film we could have had.

3/10

"Sometimes, even if you have the keys those doors still can't be opened. Can they?

Even if the door is open, the person you're looking for may not be there, Katya."