Okay, shoot me—I love Country music. So, when I heard about Crazy Heart my interest was mildly piqued. I watched as Jeff Bridges won the Oscar but I still waited seven months to rent it. I even had the DVD for three days before I put it in the machine.
Crazy Heart is about Bad Blake (no, I didn’t make this up), a broken down, hard living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages and far too many years on the road. But Bad’s real problem is too many drinks along that road.
You may be asking yourself right about now why I’m even reviewing such a clichéd film. One word…Jeff Bridges. Bridges fully inhabits Blake, slowly revealing the bone-weariness of this singer’s life. His very essence is beaten up by life—downtrodden, yet with flashes of arrogance. His “under acting” is brilliant.
Bad meets a journalist along the way. He’s 57 and playing dives. Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) knows who he was in times past and asks for an interview. This odd pair can’t seem to stay apart as she discovers the real man behind the musician. She has a three-year-old son that Jean wants to shield from Bad’s bad habits (couldn’t resist that one) and he has a twenty eight year old son he hasn’t seen since he was four. Along the way they fall into a semblance of a relationship, him trying to control his drinking around Jean’s son and her encouraging him to reach out to his.
Bad has music in the very core of his being. Even in a drunken stupor in a seedy hotel room, he picks up his guitar and writes the most amazing songs, saying, “the harder the life, the sweeter the song.”
At one of his lowest points, Jean walks away from him and he reaches out for salvation, not necessarily of the religious variety but the utter redemption of a man hanging at the end of his rope looking for the knot.
When I heard about the movie, I guess the real reason I didn’t run right out and rent it was that I intrinsically don’t like downer movies, but I didn’t get that feeling from Crazy Heart when I finally watched it. I somehow knew that this Bad boy (couldn’t resist that one either) was going to redeem himself.
Crazy Heart also went home from the Academy Awards with an Oscar for Best Original Song, The Weary Kind. But if you’re not fond of country music then Crazy Heart may sound like the kind of tear-jerky movie you should avoid. Bridges will change your mind. It took an Oscar chasing role tailored for Bridges to win him the belated respect; the movie is hardly worthy of him. It’s a small movie perfectly scaled to the big performance at its center.
I would be totally remiss if I didn’t mention Robert Duvall’s stellar performance as Blake’s best friend and mentor. Let me know what you think, did Bridges deserve the Oscar? The Academy doesn’t always get it right but in one woman’s opinion, this time they did Good! You can email me at chastings@rockcliff.com.
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