This is easily one of the most disppointing films I have ever seen. Wong Kar-Wai ranks amongst my favourite directors for his films in the past, particularly 'Happy Together' and 'In The Mood For Love', and his first English language film should have been quite an exciting prospect, particularly considering the impressive cast he assembled. Unfortunately, this film is all style and no substance, incredibly contrived, cliched and corny.
The bare story begins in NewYork with Elizabeth (Norah Jones), who at the film's opening has just discovered her boyfriend has left her for someone else. She befriends Jeremy (Jude Law) in a nearby cafe and they become close, meeting each night to talk and eat blueberry pie. Suddenly she leaves, deciding to travel America. We jump to Memphis where she is working two jobs in a cafe and bar. She meets a harmless drunk, a cop (David Strathairn), whose life has been destroyed by his wayward wife (Rachel Weisz). After some rather harrowing scenes here, the action jumps to Nevada, where Elizabeth now works in a casino where she meets a gambler (Natalie Portman), with whom she strikes an alliance and travels to Las Vegas with. Finally she arrives back in New York, apparently changed, with Jeremy.
It's hard to know where to start when listing the problems with this film. Like Wim Wenders, Wong Kar-Wai seems to have become enthralled by the prospect of shooting in America and has lost touch with any of the themes and characters with whom he would normally be associated, instead focusing on arresting images and tales of Americana. The dialogue is literally the worst I have ever encountered in a mainstream film. The characters speak entirely in metaphors, dripping with symbolism and apparent depth. For example, a jar of keys left by customers in Jeremy's cafe is constantly referred to as having the power to open or close doors forever and this point is laboured upon repeatedly. An exchange between Jeremy and his estranged girlfriend (Chan Marshall) goes back and forth about how throwing away the keys would "lock those doors forever" but how "even when you open those doors you might not find the person you were looking for".
No one in reality talks like this and the lack of subtlety regarding the blueberry pie; which nobody wants to eat, just as nobody wants Elizabeth; is a further example of dialogue and metaphors that are too apparent for real life. The acting deosn't help, or isn't helped by, the poor dialogue. Jude Law is utterly terrible and wooden. Rachel Weisz looks stunning, making a cheesy slow-motion entrance, but is hysterical in almost all her scenes but one, where I almost drifted off. David Strathairn is on auto-pilot. Natalie Portman is almost alright, but doesn't really engage with the character. It almost seems Kar-Wai chose the actors he wanted to work with without any consideration of whether they were suitable for the parts or not. The only actors who escape with any dignity are Norah Jones and Chan Marshall, simply because they're not actors but singers, and so impress simply with their ability to hold their won.
The characterisation is perhaps particularly poor. We are supposed to identify most with Elizabeth but we are thrown into her world without any contextualisation. We have no history and know nothing about who she is, only that she's been dumped and seems pretty upset about it. When she leaves to travel, we have no more sense of who she is. She is just as enthralled by these new characters in her life as Kar-Wai is by America. She observes as other lives are played out, but we only get snapshots of these people too, living in isolation from anything else. This constant shift from one character to another leaves no time for any indetification. When Elizabeth returns to New York apparently a different person we can't know for sure if it's tue because we have no idea what she was like before or during the journey. The only progression we see is how her name changes from Lizzie to Betty to Beth - which doesn't tell us much about the actual change at all.
This isn't helped by the lack of establishing shots, which have been removed entirely in favour of constantly moving close-ups. Despite all the scenes in Jeremy's cafe the geography of it is fairly unknown to us. Similarly, even though Elizabeth has apparently travelled across America we get no sense of an actual voyage - we just jump from cafe to cafe, bar to bar, with nothing inbetween. The close-ups ensure we know nothing about person or place.
Having said that, the film looks great. Iranian cinematographer Darius Khondji has the freedom to experiment considerably with lighting and camera movement to provide a visual treat, but this significantly distracts from the story - it's almost as if Kar-Wai opted for visual flair over narrative. Jeremy's cafe is lit entirely by multicoloured neon lights, giving it a very unique glow and vivid colours, but this also has the effect of making it look unreal and more like a set of a cafe than an actual cafe. Elsewhere, the constant use of a drop-frame effect to slow the action becomes irritating and meaningless due to its omnipotence. Examples such as Rachel Weisz's sensual entrance, or a practical advertisement for Natalie Portman's Jag, seem to have no other purpose than to sensationalise the image. The general effect is that even the beautiful images become tiresome with the lack of substance to back them up.
Usually, Wong Kar-Wai writes and self-edits his films during the shoot, often filming entire storylines and characters which will eventually be completely cut from the film. The contrast here is that he didn't seem to edit at all, and everything has been left in; every characters story; when really less would have been more. The truth is he did edit the film rather heavily after a poor reception at Cannes last year, but he was unable to save this dire film. I thought perhaps the system of filmmaking in America would have been unsuited to his preferred way of making films, but his producers are the same as the ones in Hong Kong, just as his art director and costume designer and much of his other collaborators have made the transition across with him. This means that rather than getting a real sense of America and American characters, we have Wong Kar-Wai's America - the parallels with Wim Wender's ill-advised slices of Americana are incredible. Two great directors destroyed by their wish to explore a community and society completely unrelated to their own.
I knew this was going to be bad but nothing prepared me for quite how bad it was. I understand his next film, 'The Lady from Shanghai' will also be in English. I just hope this time it's a story and themes and characters he can work with - otherwise bring back Hong Kong, Tony Leung and Christopher Doyle. Their shared films are excellent.
At least the music was good.
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