| Overall Grade: |
A- |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
B+ |
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| Direction: |
A- |
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| Visuals: |
A- |
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read the optimist and the ****.com
by brian (movies profile)
Jul 10, 2008
4
of
5 people found this review helpful
This is a film that's romantic, sad, and gorgeous to look at. Elizabeth (Norah Jones) turns up at a New York cafe run by Jeremy (Jude Law), drenched in love-longing because her man has dumped her for somebody else. Jeremy has a jar full of keys from patrons, each with a story, and Lizzie gives him hers, hoping her boyfriend will pick them up again. Though Lizzie's boyfriend never turns up, Jeremy and Lizzie begin to have late night chats and sugar orgies, she eating a piece of blueberry pie with ice cream- she picks blueberry because that's the pie that's always left over at the end of the day. This movie encapsulates several different stories. The second one comes when Lizzie decides to "cross the street" to revisit Jeremy by the "longest way possible," which turns out to be a trip to Memphis and Nevada and points in between, thousands of miles and nearly a year pass, to avoid the inevitable romance with Jeremy. Landing in Memphis Lizzie works at two jobs, saving up money to buy a car. At a bar she encounters the drama of the drunken cop Arnie Copeland (David Strathairn) and his estranged wife, Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz). For once, an on-screen drunk admits to going to Alcoholics Anonymous - and collecting a beginner's chip over and over and over. He throws the chips on the bar and they make a satisfying chink. But Arnie comes to a bad end, though Sue Lynne, despite rejecting him, asks to keep his tab open, as she walks out of the frame and the story. Through all of this Lizzie constantly sends Jeremy a stream of postcards that are a kind of intimate diary, and he desperately tries to track her down by phone and letter, without success. Next she heads out to Nevada, and here she's working at a gambling dive where she meets a young woman named Leslie (Nathalie Portman) who's a pro card player, and they wind up leaving town together. Jeremy has his own lost love, Katya (Cat Power), she turns up eventually, just to say goodbye. Jeremy's says his keys stand for doors that he himself doesn't want to close. We watch as Jeremy plods around the diner, waiting for word of Elizabeth's return, we watch as there's a fight in the cafe, and see Jeremy play around with a surveillance camera, which he seems to use as a kind of diary. Eventually, Lizzie ends up back at Jeremy's cafe, and he's waiting for her. This is a touching movie, each story has its own "death" a relationship in Lizzies, and real death in the other two stories. This is a really enjoyable movie and I give My Blueberry Nights a 3 and on my avoidance scale I give it a 0. |
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