“a story of a woman who takes the long route instead of the short one to meet up with the man she loves”

Moira MacDonald of The Seattle Times said, “My Blueberry Nights is not for those who like movies in which things happen; rather, it’s for those in a mood to float, sometimes deliciously.”

Next to seasoned actresses like Rachel Weiss and Natalie Portman, Norah Jones looked bland. Which isn’t a bad thing because that’s what her character, Elizabeth, is supposed to be. You can look at this movie as a love story, an extended music video, an exhibition on stylized filmmaking, or a lesson on some life characters you’ll meet along the way. The movie was directed by Wong Kar-Wai, a Hong Kong-based filmmaker famous for his highly stylized films, music videos, and commercials.

Elizabeth is a heartbroken girl who ended up spending nights over a cafe run by Jeremy (Jude Law), munching on the blueberry pie nobody else ever orders. Thoroughly unhappy and hoping to find herself, she decided to leave New York one night without saying goodbye to Jeremy. Traveling by bus, she first ended up in Memphis where she juggled two jobs (in the morning she is Betty, working at a cafeteria, and during the nights she is Lizzie, a waitress in a pub). There she met a cop (David Strathairn) who drinks every night because his wife, Sue Lynne (Rachel Weiss), left him. She then moved to Arizona, where she took a job in a casino, as Beth. Here we meet Leslie (Natalie Portman), a girl with daddy issues. She’s a card player who totally trusts her own capacity to read people, but never trust others. Throughout her road trip, Elizabeth sends Jeremy letters, sharing with him her experiences while Jeremy tries to call every diner in the cities of her letters to reach her.

Elizabeth looked at Sue Lynne and Leslie with untrained but curious eyes. These are women who represent what she will never be – self-assured and walking the earth as if the world owe them something for their beauty. But she only wants one thing – a car. Probably so she can drive herself back to New York and back to Jeremy. The last letter she wrote is my favorite:

Dear Jeremy,
In the last few days I’ve been learning not to trust people. And I’m glad I failed. Sometimes we depend on other people’s mirror to define ourselves and tell us who we are. Each reflection makes me like myself a little more.

Elizabeth

In the end, of course, she came back to New York for the blueberry pies.