1988 saw the release of the vividly and creatively shot foreign film by Pedro Almodóvar, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In 1989, Gus Van Sant put out Drugstore Cowboy, a critically acclaimed film about friends, love and a road trip across the United States. Chocolat brought the genre of the food novel to the big screen in 2001 as an adaptation of a Joanne Harris book. Chinese-born director, producer and writer Wong Kar Wai seems to have attempted a combination of all three with his first English film, My Blueberry Nights. He failed miserably.

A bewildering and mind-numbing plot comes together with painful-to-watch acting to conceive a movie that can only be described as a waste of time, money (yours and the production company’s) and attention.

For reasons known only to Wong and co-writer Lawrence Block, Elizabeth (Norah Jones) goes on a yearlong, roundtrip journey across the United States, where she comes into contact with a number of unrelated characters in nonsensical situations, the culmination of whose actions and reactions affect her in no discernible or meaningful manner. Put nicely, the movie is cyclical. Put honestly, it’s a zero-sum game.

You’ll also be stunned when Elizabeth goes about her life to the tune of a song by the actress who plays her. Viewers will spend most of their seat time picking apart the historical significance of sticky side plots that all dead-end to obscure what little impact the script might once have made.

Blueberry Nights does have its exciting moments, like when first-billed Natalie Portman shows her face for 12 minutes, during which she wins, loses, wins and then loses a few thousand dollars in a poker game. Or when David Straitham, who plays a cop and moonlighting alcoholic, dies in a blaze of glory in a drunk-driving accident. Maybe a better example would be Jones’ delivery of profound lines like, “I hope you both drop dead in a horrible accident,” with all the expression of a bored porn star.

If you were hoping for an art film, you’ve got something else coming. If you expected Jones to croon lines with dynamics or talent while making an inspiring trek cross-country, when you leave the theater, you “Won’t Know Why” you just spent the past 111 minutes fighting for an armrest and getting popcorn stuck in your gums.

Jude Law, as Jeremy, the lonely café owner and the person responsible for a truly stunning opening credit sequence that abstracts blueberry pie à la mode helps rectify the film and is the reason you’re looking at one star instead of zero.

Even if you’re happy with the film and the actors are telling an interesting, easy-to-follow tale, know that the only thing awaiting you at the end of the arduous and twisted tunnel that is My Blueberry Nights is grief and stupor. Unless confusing, inartistic and mundane cinema is your thing, leave Wong and Jones and stay with what they know.

[Reach reporter Maddie Hall at arts@thedaily.washington.edu.]