Review: "My Blueberry Nights"

Norah Jones' problem is that she looks like a movie star. It's very easy to see why famed Chinese director Wong Kar Wai, in his first English language film, would want to frame Jones' face at the center of his darkly-lit, neon-accented shots: with her hair hanging down and her lips pursed, she looks like a screen siren that could have been a Hitchcock femme fatale. Unfortunately, there's nothing in the eyes.

As smooth and longing as her voice can be, her face exhibits almost no emotion throughout the entirity of My Blueberry Nights, but it does little to harm the film, which is essentially three short films with a barely-there throughline. Jones and Jude Law--exhibiting a wisened charm and maturity--flirt somberly in a New York cafe until she takes jumps, somewhat inexplicably, into a cross-country road trip. The strangers she meets are consistently fascinating. David Strathairn as a drunkard cop, Rachel Weisz as his put-upon ex-wife, and Natalie Portman as a high-stakes gambler all do some of the best work they've ever done. But it all amounts to...prettiness.

Blueberry is sweet and even, in moments, touching. And despite having essentially no story, it's never boring. But you also wish that Jones would just let go or that Wong Kar Wai would tell her to.