My Blueberry Nights

I caught this movie yesterday at the 10th Osian cinefan festival at Siri Fort. Since the movie starred Norah Jones (someone we Indian’s love to call our own while rejecting Sonia Gandhi) the hall was choc a block. It was her debut movie and she did a fairly good job. Though frankly speaking her role though the lengthiest in the film was that of Miss Goodie Two Shoes and therefore much easier to perform than a more realistic grey character would have been for example that of Natalie Portman who plays a lovable gambler.

So now why am I writing about this one of many American sweet as saccharine film though admittedly directed by a very renowned Director, Wong Kar Wai?

Cause while I saw the movie at one level many questions came popping up in my head at another level, so I thought I will share the same with you and hope to receive some answers.

To begin with let me give you a synopsis of what the movie is about to those who haven’t seen it so that we are on the level.
Jeremy (Jude Law) runs a cafe in New York City. Elizabeth (Norah Jones) finds out from him that her boyfriend has eaten in the restaurant with another woman. Elizabeth is angry and leaves him; she gives her keys to Jeremy, in case the boyfriend comes to collect them. Elizabeth returns several times. She and Jeremy like each other.She travels by bus to Memphis, Tennessee, where she takes two jobs, in a cafe and in a bar, to save money for buying a car. She sends postcards to Jeremy without revealing where she lives or works. Jeremy tries to find out, but fails.She encounters policeman Arnie (David Strathairn) grieving about the fact that his wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz) has left him, and in his leisure time coming to the bar to drink a lot. After threatening Sue with his gun he kills himself by crashing his car. Elizabeth comforts the now grieving Sue.Elizabeth lends another woman, Leslie (Natalie Portman), her savings for gambling; if she loses Elizabeth gets Leslie's car, and so it happens. They move on together because Leslie needs a ride to her father in Las Vegas, who can help her financially. She gets a call, answered by Elizabeth, from the hospital to inform her that her father is dying. Leslie does not believe it, she thinks it is a trick to make her visit him. They go to the hospital anyway, and at Leslie's request Elizabeth goes inside alone to check. Leslie's father is dead. Leslie wants to keep the car, and confesses that she has lied about losing with gambling. She pays Elizabeth money with which she buys another car.Elizabeth returns to Jeremy in New York, and they love each other.

Ok, so here are the questions in my head:

We all have break-ups but in real life is it really possible to leave your existing life and just go off?

Also is the beloved the only one who is important….family, friends, colleagues, no one matters? Does love make people so selfish?

The girl travels through the US using public transport without a single nasty personal experience …how come we don’t manage that feat even while traveling within the same city?

Arnie behaves like a control freak…who screams at his wife in public that she ought to start charging her various boyfriends when she says she would be looking for a job to support herself. He is an alcoholic who has been in and out of rehab several times. He is the one shown in a sympathetic light….please tell me how is it wrong for a woman to seek freedom from a control freak, suspicious, drunkard?

Leslie is going to Vegas to meet her father and ask him for financial help but when she gets to know about the call from the hospital she doesn’t want to meet him saying he plays these tricks on her to make her come to him. Wasn’t she herself anyways going to meet him? Did the Director lose it?

Jeremy waits for her to come back for an year….she had made no such promise nor does she mention anything like that in her letters to him. Her letters at best were diary entries addressed to Jeremy. I see people moving on within a week of separation with partners. Does this really happen?

Is it necessary that a renowned Director bow to American money and clout and portray the American dream of assured gold at the end of the road? Was he making a fairy tale for kids?

And last but not the least is it a good enough reason to drop your boyfriend that he had lunch at a downtown cafeteria with another girl?

Am disappointed Mr. Wai had heard great things about you. I am no great critic and am yet to see many of the greats but this didn’t stand the test even by my standards.

Oh by the way forgot to mention the blueberry connection….at the cafeteria the blueberry pie is what Elizabeth eats…so Jeremy keeps making them everyday hoping that she will come back to have some more. Sticky sweet???