My Blueberry Nights
The Weinstein Company | Release Date: April 4, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
18
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Captures the overwhelming and uncontrollable emotional assault of loving and living through captured moments and sensuous images. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Despite its flaws, the film has the same dreamy, romantic melancholy that distinguishes Wong's best films. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Wong's visions of a New York café, a Memphis bar, and a Vegas casino--not to mention the swaths of beautiful country in the Southwest--have that enveloping quality that make his films so persistently seductive. The natives should feel flattered. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Wildly romantic. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's a stylish and sweet film with moments of affecting brilliance that counterbalance its flaws. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Norah Jones, making her big-screen debut as a wistful wanderer, is a beautiful blank, and the fragments barely add up to a movie. Read full review
63
PremiereGlenn Kenny
All this is frustrating, as the picture contains a few grace notes that remind one what an acute filmmaker Wong can be. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Music and nostalgia are what fuel all this filmmaker's movies, though, even a half-baked translation like this one. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The director is chasing a mood here -- a mood, an atmosphere and feelings -- much as he did in "In the Mood for Love." Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
My Blueberry Nights may not quite be what fans of either Jones or Wong Kar-wai -- directing his first film in English -- are expecting. It's a late-night, lovelorn mood piece in a minor key, not complicated or convoluted, finally more confection than substance. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
As much a trifle as its title suggests, My Blueberry Nights sees Hong Kong stylist Wong Kar Wai applying his characteristic visual and thematic doodles to a wispy story of lovelorn Yanks. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichelle Orange
The disappointment here doesn't have much to do with Wong doing America--he's been doing America for years, even in Chinese--but with Wong doing Wong, and not up to his own standard. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Often ponderous, sometimes pretentious and mostly clichéd, this contrived meditation on longing and loss feels like a missed opportunity. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
Alternately precious and vapid, the movie attempts to wrest metaphors from a jar of house keys, and eternal verities from pastry. Slice the pie how you will, it's still half-baked. Read full review
50
New York PostV.A. Musetto
The biggest problem is Wong's decision to cast Norah Jones as Elizabeth, a New Yorker who hits the road after a love affair goes bad. Jones, in her first movie, can't act. (There, I said it!) Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
After 90 minutes of My Blueberry Nights, which pass pleasantly enough, with swirly, mood-saturated colors; lovely faces; and nice music, you may feel a bit logy yourself -- filled up, sugar-addled, but not really satisfied. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineEd Gonzalez
Every shot is painstakingly thought out, but less emphasis is placed on the human face than on the surfaces that reflect it and the objects that obscure it, and the overall effect is close to that of fetish art. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
A stunner of a movie. But all those gorgeous images never add up to a full picture. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai has an undeservedly high reputation as a master stylist. He's more like a master window dresser. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The use of recognizable movie stars doesn't help, r serve Wong's style. My Blueberry Nights" should have played like a memory, but its hard-living, luckless losers are too beautiful to be believed. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
There's a curious mismatch between the surface of the movie and what lies beneath it. Wong's technique is layered and detailed like a couture gown, but the story it hangs on is as generic as a seamstress's dress form. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Isn’t eye candy; it’s a drool-worthy slice of eye pie. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
In these dusty American settings, the wistful melancholy of Wong's earlier movies seems fairly contrived. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
There are momentary pleasures, to be sure – a corker of a kiss here, an Otis Redding-backed barroom slink there – but frankly, I'm a little weary of Wong wearing "that same old shaggy dress." Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
It's beautiful to look at, but there's little there to savor. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Even with dyed hair, heavy makeup and a cigarette dangling from her bottom lip, Portman still looks like a schoolgirl pretending to be somebody's mom. Read full review
38
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
The extensive dialogue sequences literalize the sort of things Wong usually captures via woozy imagery; moments that have powerful emotional weight in his other features here feel like silly gestures. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Fractured, tentative, oh-so-artsy and very much in the style of Wong's previous Hong Kong-set boy-meets-girl movies. But this time, the effect is contrived: a star-driven pseudo-indie affair that will please neither celebrity worshipers nor cineastes. Read full review
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