The synopsis for Crazy Heart has all the makings of a country music ballad. Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a 57 yr old country musician, whose fame has waned and whose only comfort is the Southern kind. Touring small towns in his dilapidated car, gigging in bowling alleys and pubs, Bad Blake is living on a back catalogue of long gone hits. Then one day he meets a younger woman, Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and attempts to create a bond with her and her son, in the selfish hope of transforming his lonely existence.
In his Golden Globe winning performance Jeff Bridges commits fully to the role, singing and puking the whole way through. This is a man who has lost nearly everything to alcohol; yet there is something so likeable about him. You can almost understand why Jean falls for him, despite his obvious flaws. But almost isn’t good enough, the relationships woven in the story fall well short of believable. Both Gyllenhaal and Colin Farrell as Tommy Sweet (with incredibly distracting earrings), the rising country superstar and former Bad Blake pupil, feel awkwardly miscast.
Crazy Heart is Scott Cooper’s directorial feature debut, and he has certainly struck gold having Jeff Bridges steer the film. It is disappointing that the plot doesn’t try and cover any new ground. Robert Duvall, who plays a small part and acted as a producer, starred in an 80s film, Tender Mercies, that covered this exact thematic terrain and won him an Oscar.
Winning Best Original Song at the Globes, with the track Weary Heart (T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham), Crazy Heart is country through and through. And you either love or hate country music. For us latter campers, the soundtrack definitely starts to grate.
The main reason to see this film is the central performance. Outside of Bridges, what is left is mediocre. Crazy Heart lacks the courage to delve deep enough into the depths of alcoholism or the seductiveness of fame to give its audience anything original.
2.5/5
