'My Blueberry Nights' a slice of life
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Has anyone ever written a dissertation on the importance of pie to the American cinema?
Right, yes, I know you're thinking of American Pie - but let's lift this conversation up a bit, shall we?
I'm thinking of last year's Waitress in which the inadvertently pregnant Jenna (Keri Russell) is a pie-making genius - and each of her creations is a manifestation of her emotional situation.
American as apple pie. Pie in the sky. Easy as pie. Honey pie. Pie is a vehicle that lends itself to metaphor and theatrical device.
A pie has a supporting role in Wong Kar Wai's pleasant little romantic road trip parable My Blueberry Nights (Genius, 2.5 stars). Well, yeah, a blueberry pie.
It starts in a New York cafe run by Jeremy (Jude Law). He not only has to feed his customers, he must serve up the hard truth about her boyfriend to a distraught Elizabeth (the singer Norah Jones in her acting debut).
Those two pork chops he ordered the other night? They weren't both for him. Apparently Jeremy gets a lot of Elizabeths in his cafe. He has a fishbowl full of front door keys left behind by jilted and cuckolded lovers. Even of set of his own (from a Russian with wanderlust named Katya, played by another hot musician, Cat Power).
Lost, heartbroken, adrift, Elizabeth adopts Jeremy's cafe as a late-night hangout. Naturally, she wallows in self-hatred and blames herself for the guy's infidelity.
This is where Jeremy brings out the pies, while cleaning up at the end of the night. The cheesecakes and apple pies - always gone by the end of the night. Cherry pie and others nearly gone. Ah, but the blueberry, he laments, is always left. Nobody picks the blueberry.
"What's wrong with the blueberry?" Elizabeth shoots back.
"There's nothing wrong with the blueberry pie," exclaims Jeremy, "just ... people make other choices. You can't blame the blueberry pie, it's just ... no one wants it.
Sometimes people reject a perfectly good pie. Elizabeth is just having a blueberry moment.
I don't know if she completely buys that line of thinking but she tries a slice of the blueberry pie (with ice cream) and pronounces it "good pie." Just as Elizabeth is beginning to grow on Jeremy (just as Norah Jones begins to grow on us as an actress) she splits for parts unknown.
Actually, it's Memphis. Where she's known as Lizzie. And later, it's a one-casino gambling town in Nevada, where she's called Beth.
On the way Elizabeth works as a waitress and barmaid and picks up on a handful of characters whom she holds up as a mirror "and with each reflection I like myself a little more," she notes in a postcard back to Jeremy (never with a return address).
In Memphis, it's the boozy pair Arnie (David Strathairn) and Sue Lynn (a barely recognizable Rachel Weisz). He's an alcoholic cop with a bad case of junkie's love for his Sue Lynn. She's white trash. Enough said.
As Sue Lynn tells Lizzie, "He was so crazy about me I couldn't breathe so we tried drinking our way back into love." You just know that ain't going to end well. In Nevada, Elizabeth pals up with Leslie (peroxide-blonde and sassy Natalie Portman), a brassy high-stakes gambler who has trust issues.
"Trust everyone but always cut the cards," she cautions Elizabeth.
OK, this isn't the most complicated story and you can pretty well guess where Elizabeth will end up. But if you've experienced a Wong Kar Wai film before - 2046 and Chungking Express will do nicely - you know the script is just a part of it all. His films are awash in colour-drenched mood, unexpected camera angles and aural details. A slamming door or city train becomes a supporting character in the film.
Wong Kar Wai improvises like a jazz musician but he always returns to the original score. Speaking of score, selecting Ry Cooder for the incidental music doesn't hurt either - especially when wrapped around some moody Norah Jones songs.
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IT CAME FROM TV
The debut season of one of the year's few TV success stories Mad Men is available this week. The series, passed over by HBO among others, was a first for the AMC (formerly American Movie Classics) cable channel. The series portrays the life and times of Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency in 1960 - just before the world is about to experience an unprecedented social upheaval. The agency is filled with WASPs, boozers and womanizers - all blissfully unaware of the major changes taking place in the American streets and homes below.
FROM THE VAULTS
Heathers (1989) Veronica (Winona Ryder) wants so badly to be a part of the popular clique at school, the Heathers, named thus because the three queen bees are all named Heather. Her quest leaves Veronica wishing the Heathers were all dead. When Veronica meets JD (Christian Slater) the whole situation takes a psychotic twist. Are dead Heathers the way to become popular? The DVD contains a new feature on the film and the original ending screenplay excerpt.
DVD RATINGS
4 stars: Don't miss: rent it/buy it
3 stars: Worth the risk: rent it
2 stars: On the tipping point: if nothing else is available
1 star: Don't bother: wait until it's in the $1 bin
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