My Blueberry Nights

My Blueberry Nights is a 2007 romance/drama/road film directed by Wong Kar Wai, his first feature in English. The screenplay by Wong and Lawrence Block is based on a short Chinese-language film written and directed by Wong. This film was the debut of jazz singer Grammy-winner Norah Jones as an actress, and also starred Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, and Benjamin Kanes.

The cinematographer of this film was Darius Khondji. Christopher Doyle was Wong's cinematographer for his last seven features before My Blueberry Nights, starting from 1990's Days of Being Wild.

Jeremy is an émigré from Manchester who owns a small New York City cafe. The cafe becomes a haven for Elizabeth, a young woman, as Jeremy tells her that he saw her boyfriend cheating on her. Devastated, she stays in his cafe the entire night, eating a blueberry pie he made, and also telling stories about each other. Jeremy, having an eidetic memory, explains her the bowl of keys he is keeping, knowing the story of every person who left the key in his cafe and keeping it in the bowl in case someone comes back for them. Elizabeth leaves her key of her apartment and leaves Jeremy's cafe.

Elizabeth, now calling herself Lizzie, eventually drifts to Memphis, Tennessee, where she takes two jobs, waitress by day and barmaid by night, in order to earn enough money to finance the purchase of a car. She regularly sends postcards to Jeremy, taking a liking to him, without revealing where she lives or works and, although he tries to locate her by calling all the restaurants in the area, he fails to find her. Later on, he decides to send out postcards to any restaurants she may be to try to find her.

One of Lizzie's regulars at both jobs is local policeman Arnie Copeland, an alcoholic who cannot accept the fact his wife Sue Lynne has left him and is flaunting her freedom by openly socializing with a younger man named Randy. He confesses to Lizzie his many attempts at achieving sobriety have ended in failure, taking many AA meetings but failing. One night, he drunkenly threatens Sue Lynne with his gun if she leaves. Later on, Arnie drives drunk and dies after crashing into a pole. Lizzie comforts Sue Lynne, at the crash site, who gives her the money towards Arnie's tab at the bar Lizzie works at in the evening, before leaving town, revealing that she made a mistake and that she misses him, also revealing that the place where he died is the place where they met, revealing that he may have committed suicide.

Heading west, Elizabeth – now calling herself Beth – gets another waitress job at a casino in a small town in Nevada. Here she meets Leslie, an inveterate poker player who has lost all her money. Beth agrees to lend her $2200 she has in exchange for a third of her winnings or her car, a Jaguar XK, if she loses. When she does lose, she fulfills her promise by giving Beth her Jaguar, but asks her to drive her to Las Vegas so she can borrow money from her father, whom she has not seen in a long time.

While en route she receives a call from a Vegas hospital, where her father has been admitted and is dying. Leslie believes the call is simply a ruse to lure her home, but upon arrival in Vegas she discovers her father died the previous night. Leslie announces she wants to keep the car, which she had stolen from her father, who had sent her the title and registration despite their estrangement. She confesses she really won the card game and gives Beth her promised share of the winnings, which she uses to finally purchase the car she always wanted.

Elizabeth returns to Manhattan and, discovering her ex-boyfriend has vacated his apartment and moved on with his life, returns to the cafe, where Jeremy has had a stool at the counter reserved for her ever since she left. As she eats a slice of blueberry pie, Elizabeth realizes her feelings for him are reciprocated. She passes out on the counter after spending the night, and Jeremy kisses her while she is asleep, and she returns the kiss as the film ends.
Production

In Making My Blueberry Nights, a bonus on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Wong Kar Wai reveals his first choice for Elizabeth was singer Norah Jones despite her lack of prior acting experience. He originally intended to shoot the film in sequence, but when he discovered Rachel Weisz, whom he wanted to cast as Sue Lynne, was pregnant, he agreed to film the Memphis scenes last to allow her time to give birth and recuperate before beginning work.

The film was shot on location at the Palacinka Cafe in SoHo in New York City, the South Main Arts District in Memphis, and Caliente, Ely, and Las Vegas in Nevada.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and was shown at the Hamburg Film Festival, the Valladolid International Film Festival, and the Munich Asia Filmfest before going into limited theatrical release in Canada on November 16. It opened throughout Europe and Asia before opening on six screens in the US on April 4, 2008, as a limited release on USA. It earned $74,146 on its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $867,275 in the US and $21,101,602 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $21,968,877.