Movie: My Blueberry Nights (2007)

*I put one of my favorite song out of My Blueberry Night OST. It’s The Greatest by Cat Power.If you’d like, just click the play button and enjoy it as you read the post.

I should give my thanks to Sheva Thalia, the author of Blue Romance, who have mentioned about this movie in her omnibus novel. I think I understand why she was inspired to make Blue Romance in a format of an omnibus. That way, she could hold stories with a café as the setting. Both would appeal and supporting each other.

Well, about the movie itself, it’s a sentimental one.

It started with the scene where Elizabeth (Norah Jones) ring a certain café to look for her boyfriend that suddenly disappear. Later she found out that her boyfriend brought another girl there. Never contacted her again and poof, he’s gone. Even not taking the keys she left at the café. Broken hearted enough to need someone to talk, that’s when Jeremy (Jude Law) came and conversations build their friendship as they getting comfortable with each other. Still, Elizabeth try to wait and see if her boyfriend would comeback.

But no, he did not.

So, Elizabeth decided that she should leave and trying to forget her love. Took double job (waitressing) that will wear her out so she wouldn’t have even a second to remember the pain she carried. And this journey she took, brought her to meet people with loneliness and grief.

Sometimes we depend on other people as mirror to define us and tell us who we are.

In Memphis, she met Arnie (David Strathrain), a lonely husband (and well-respected cop) whose wife runaway with another man. Arnie love her wife (Rachel Weisz as Sue Lynne) too much he won’t let her go and never admit that they’ve gone separated. She saw how Arnie failed to cope and she also learned another angle of their story from Sue Lynne.

In Nevada, she met Leslie (Natalie Portman) an interesting woman who experted her way in playing cards but grew skeptic about people, even her father. Until later she knew that her father have a serious ill and it’s too late for her to say goodbye.

I wonder how you remember me. As the girl who liked the blueberry pies or the girl with broken heart?

The journey Elizabeth took was an important exploration of herself. She learned so much from other’s stories. All the way the journey was taken, she have not forgotten about Jeremy. She wrote and share her story with him, as if she can share everything to him without feeling awkward and love blooms in between. Softly.. without hurry.

I love this movie. Hell, I’m melancholic enough that it’s easy for me to fall for this slow romance story. The kind of movie that has a private impact, the movie that we’d selfishly thought that this was made especially for us just because we can relate to the character.