At Cannes, Blueberry Nights and Romanian Days

A. O. Scott in the New York Times:

Screenhunter_01_may_19_1443As a first course the 60th Cannes Film Festival served its audiences dessert.

Wong Kar-wai, the Hong Kong director who was president of the jury at the 2006 festival, opened this year’s event with “My Blueberry Nights,” a romantic confection that begins with a lingering shot of vanilla ice cream melting into the gooey filling of a blueberry pie. The film, Mr. Wong’s first English-language feature, takes place in a postcard America of diners and red neon signs, a land of heartbreak and second chances where folks play poker and drink whiskey and subsist on cheeseburgers, pork chops and, in at least one case, quite a bit of that pie.

The pie eater is Norah Jones, the singer and songwriter, who makes her screen debut as Elizabeth, a New Yorker on the rebound from a long relationship with an unfaithful, unseen and unnamed boyfriend.

More here.  [Thanks to Asad Raza.]