My Blueberry Nights is the first film shot in English by Wong Kar Wai.
Elizabeth, a girl with a broken heart, leaves New York to start a journey of emotional healing around the States; she will work in several night cafes and bars and meet different characters, with whom she will get involved. The story is told through the postcards and letters that Elizabeth sends to her special friend Jeremy, the owner of her favourite café. Most of the movie happens during night time.
My Blueberry Nights is, in a way, an homage to the characters, themes and the ambience of the black and white classic movies of the 1950s... but shot in glorious colours. The movie is an ode to the life of the American urban nights and of its characters.
This is a very artistic and stylish film, in which the settings, the characters, the colours, the textures, the music, and the wardrobe have been taken care of to the minimal detail.
The acting is good in general. I found Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn and Natalie Portman excellent in their respective roles. Jude Law is correct as cafe owner Jeremy, in a role that does is not dramatically demanding. On the contrary, I found the presence of Norah Jones as Elizabeth a big mistake; she is a great musician and singer, but she doesn't have any dramatic talent.
One of the main flaws of the movie is the underdevelopment of Elizabeth's character. She is supposed to be the main character in the movie, but she ends being only a link between the different stories. Elizabeth's miseries and emotional struggle are barely hinted, and it is difficult to empathise with her or understand her actions.
The film has poor reviews in general, but I loved it in spite of its flaws because of its stylish atmosphere, its emotional depiction of the American underground and night life, the wonderful music, and some of the performances.
Little Miss Sunshine is a road movie about a dysfunctional family trying to take their seven-year-old Olive to an interstate beauty pageant from Alburquerque NM to Redondo Beach CA in their yellow Volkswagen Van.
Little Miss Sunshine is an fresh, witty and enthralling movie with freak and quirky characters, brilliant dialogues, great performances, and an original story. It is an entertaining funny crazy film that makes you think about
subjects that are never confrontationally presented.
What makes a family dysfunctional? At the beginning of the film our family seem to be dysfunctional and freak, although they are depicted in an empathetic way and epitomise, in a way, the dysfunctions that most so-called-normal families have. The thing is, the family
does not push Olive into the pageant, does not force her to dress or
behave in a certain way, does not dress her as little prostitute, does
not expect anything from her, just supports her the whole way, even
when everybody turns against her. The other parents, the "normal" ones,
appear as real freaks after all, projecting their frustrated dreams and personal failure into their little kids. All
of the sudden, the dysfunctional family is quite sound, warm and caring,
the others just the opposite.
There is a subtle but clear criticism of the ideal of the American dream and of the self-help books and coaching focusing on becoming rich. The character of Richard epitomises the bullshit that these sub-culture has, pushing people to fight for money success following recipes that frequently lead to failure for which they do not prepare anybody. Sheryl the mother is instead the voice of common sense and more successful in her approach to life and its problems.
There is also a very cleaver non non-confrontational criticism of child beauty pageants. The script poses a rhetorical question to the viewer: what is it freakier, a
beautiful child sexually dressed wearing sluty make up who poses and
moves as a sexy adult, or an innocent child who sings and dances to a
raunchy song that she does not understand? What happens to Olive at the pageant is the answer that the script gives to that rhetorical question, and surely the one you would identify the most.
The movie provides the viewer with many iconic movie images, which will imprint your retinas and stand the pass of time: The pushing of the van and the music, the girl singing "super freak", the escape from the hospital, among many others.
If this was not enough, all the actors give unforgettable performances in their respective roles: Toni Collette as the family's warm-hearted sound mother Sheryl, Greg Kinnear is her unsuccessful husband Richard, Alan Arkin as Richard's dirty father Edwin, Steve Carell as Shery'ls gay suicidal scholar brother, Abigail Breslin as the sweet innocent Olive, and Paul Dano as Olive's half brother silent rebel Dwayne.
A modern classic.
