“My Blueberry Nights” is a road movie that keenly displays Wong Kar Wai’s aptitude for relationship drama and showcasing the female form, but the Chinese director’s American debut often makes the earnest miscalculation of a dubbed foreign film.

Mr. Wong’s first English-language feature transports his familiar style of storytelling across the globe, from the cramped quarters of Hong Kong to the vast landscapes of America. It is strangely exhilarating to watch Caucasian faces populate Mr. Wong’s trademark high-relief style, offering the promise that the magic he works in Chinese will be made available for an entirely new audience. But in translating his fascination with the distances between two people into American vernacular, Mr. Wong betrays an unfamiliarity with his subject matter that often undermines his story.

Mr. Wong has put the fate of his film in the hands of the jazz songstress Norah Jones, who plays a jilted lover named Elizabeth struggling to find herself in the wake of a failed relationship. She stumbles into Jeremy’s (Jude Law) Manhattan eatery and the two make a connection over a plate of his perpetually uneaten blueberry pie. But soon Elizabeth sets off on a road trip of self-discovery, and the narrative shifts from Elizabeth and Jeremy’s respective lost partners to the feelings that might exist between the two of them. During her travels, Elizabeth takes on different nicknames and blue-collar jobs, learning from the hardships and heartaches of those she encounters in small-town and big-city America. The choice of Ms. Jones, known for her beautiful visage and crooning vocals, to headline this project reflects Mr. Wong’s fascination with American blues music, a motif that runs from his choice of stars through to the score. Broken hearts, idealized diner interactions, and working-class hardship are at the heart of “My Blueberry Nights.”

Sadly, Mr. Wong’s interpretation of American lives and landscapes has an alien quality to it. He fetishizes the American countryside, drowns his characters’ sorrows in whiskey, and makes plot-oriented decisions based on aesthetics rather than continuity or logic. The image of beautiful women in oversize sunglasses leaning against convertibles is not an accurate depiction of Americana — but it doesn’t make for a bad visual.

Ms. Jones does better than might be expected in her film debut, but she often comes off as a voyeuristic wallflower, which is no minor travesty considering how mesmerizing Tony Leung was in Mr. Wong’s two previous films, “2046” and “In the Mood for Love.”

But Mr. Wong has chosen two of Hollywood’s most luscious actresses, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman, to lift some of the burden off Ms. Jones. They both captivate, but it is Ms. Weisz who grabs hold of the screen and sucks the air out of the room every time she enters as the lovelorn divorcée Sue, who is unable to fully break free of her failed marriage to policeman Arnie (David Strathairn). Ms. Portman may be miscast as a gambling miscreant, and her bleached pixie cut a misguided style choice, but she still manages a captivating charisma that makes her scenes worth watching.

It is hard not to appreciate Mr. Wong’s showmanship in depicting failed courtships with raw beauty. Here, he cherry-picks some of the most erotic elements of our national pastimes, focusing on overhead train tracks, images of the road, and the sensual tension of ice cream melting into a slice of blueberry pie.

It is just as easy to get caught up in the filmmaker’s hypnotic love affairs. Mr. Wong continues to intrigue with depictions of the distance — physical and otherwise — between two people who yearn for each other, but “My Blueberry Nights” is nowhere near the triumph of “2046,” “In the Mood for Love,” or “Fallen Angels.”

Mr. Wong’s films often feel like glances into someone else’s dream world, and “My Blueberry Nights” is no exception. The director continues to languish in sexual intrigue and lavishly composed images. But these successes only heighten the absence of what has been lost in translation.

mkeane@nysun.com