Stars come out, but they just don't shine in 'Blueberry Nights'

Searching for honky-tonk blues in bars from New York to Memphis to Nevada, "My Blueberry Nights" comes up with no more than a bland and pointless wanderlust. Sit through this without nodding and you're a better man than I, Gunga Din.

One of the most believable scenes is the one in which Norah Jones, the songbird making her acting debut, falls asleep across a counter with ice cream on her lips. This sleep-inducing film makes this one of the few scenes with motivation, much less believability.

The Grammy-winning singer is, on record, wonderfully adept at suggesting a suffering-soul kind of maturity. She is not yet an actress though. We can hardly judge by this film because she is required to do no more than wander through scenes and passively observe the supposed emotional traumas of others. She's the ghost of past affairs, with no semblance of feeling or involvement for or about the parade of losers who walk, very slowly, through her life.

This is not to say she doesn't have promise. Jones looks like a movie star - complete with thick lips and vaguely Asian eyes. One doubts, though, whether even Meryl Streep could do anything with the role assigned here.

In the beginning we are asked to care about her character ending an off-camera affair. She wanders into a New York cafe-diner where, unbelievably, Jude Law is a counter-wiper with philosophy. With his British accent intact, he's way too slick for the part. He talks about the keys customers have left. She stares, blankly.

We're supposed to believe there is the basis for some kind of love affair here.

She leaves to travel cross country to try getting over her lost love. This enables her to run into varied star-names who have obviously taken this low-paying assignment because of juicy roles.

There's David Strathairn as a hopeless drunk - perennially trying to quit. There's Rachel Weisz as his slutty wife, who has given up on him and herself. There's Natalie Portman as a compulsive gambler and small-time hustler. Rather than real "characters," they are all "types" who pass through the night.

The title comes from an opening shot of ice cream melting over a slice of blueberry pie -the one pie no one ever orders at the diner. Unwanted. Alone. Get the symbolism?

More likely, you'll get the pretension - particularly in the self-indulgent way the director photographs movement in choppy slow-motion.

This is the first English language film of Japanese director Wong Kar-wai, who has a rep for slow films. His defenders say his style is "seductive." Trying to pass off "Blueberry Nights" as something of a movie "tone poem" will be a tough assignment, even for those who like to see meaning in every pregnant pause.

Kar-wai's "In the Mood for Love" was vastly overpraised. A similar fate is not likely for "My Blueberry Nights."