The Weinstein Co.
Jude Law and Norah Jones kiss in "My Blueberry Nights."
You can argue that the Chinese-born, Hong Kong-based filmmaker Wong Kar-wai was jumping off a cliff by making "My Blueberry Nights" -- a movie written in English, shot in the United States, and starring an untested pop singer with no acting experience -- but you can't argue it was the first time. In eight feature films spread over two decades, Wong has made a violent gangland drama, a period romance, a 1960s coming-of-age picture, an elliptical science-fiction epic and a tale of bohemian gay lovers shot in Argentina. It's difficult to say whether any of his pictures belong to the same genre as any of the others, but they're all defiantly Wong Kar-wai films that seem to fuse the traditions of Western and Eastern art cinema, languorous dreamlike experiences where plot is secondary to mood and where the beauty of each episode, each face, each room and each moment is paramount.
Having seen two versions of "My Blueberry Nights" -- the cut that was screened at Cannes last May, and the slightly shorter, less complicated edit opening this week in the U.S. -- I've pretty well concluded that it's a noble experiment that doesn't quite work. (If anything, I liked the first version better. Or else it was just Cannes, and I was drunk on good wine and louche atmosphere.) Fans of Wong's now-classic Hong Kong films, from "Days of Being Wild" and "Ashes of Time" to his international hit "In the Mood for Love" and the incoherent but gorgeous "2046," will likely find "My Blueberry Nights" lightweight and sentimental. On the other hand, anybody who shows up to see Jude Law and Norah Jones in a love story may be mystified by Wong's near-plotless Americana road movie, which contrives improbable means of keeping the central couple apart as long as possible.