Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart is an example of an otherwise standard, so-so film that is elevated by a powerful central performance, in this case by Jeff Bridges, who is cutting a swath through the awards season, deservedly so.

The story, which can be rightly assessed as the country music version of The Wrestler, concerns Bridges as “Bad” Blake, a washed-up country star who has just about bottomed out, but is redeemed by the love of a good woman. This is hardly new territory, but as long as Bridges is on screen (which is just about one-hundred percent of the time) I didn’t mind the occasional lapses into TV-movie triteness.

I will give writer and director Scott Cooper, who adapted a novel by Thomas Cobb, credit for economy of images. We learn just about everything we need to know about Bad when he steps out of his ancient vehicle in a bowling alley parking lot. “Fucking bowling alley,” is his first line, and he dumps out a bottle of road-piss onto the asphalt. Bad is fifty-seven, at one time a star, but is now playing for small crowds and small paydays at small venues, this time in New Mexico. He is an alcoholic, and though he never misses a show, he barely makes it through them, as his gig at the bowling alley is punctuated by a sojourn to the alley to vomit.

In Santa Fe he does a favor for the local piano player and gives an interview to the man’s niece, who turns out to be Maggie Gyllenhaal. He is enormously attracted to her, and she kind of digs him, too, even though the first time she sees him he’s wearing nothing but a towel. The only thing she doesn’t like about him is that he’s a drunk, but the two fall into an easy rhythm together and he becomes attached to her four-year-old son.

Gyllenhaal is about thirty years younger than Bridges, and there is that uneasy feeling that accompanies these May-September romances that the movies are full of. Gyllenhaal is a fine actress, and convinces me she falls for Bridges, but it would have been much better for the story if an actress about ten years older had been cast (Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei were much better matched in The Wrestler). As it is it remains too much of a fantasy for those men who will never see fifty again.

The plot then goes into TV-movie land, as Bridges shares that he has a son he hasn’t seen in years (and what do you know, the boy was four the last time he saw him, the same age as Gyllenhaal’s son!) and a cheap, child-in-jeopardy sequence. The scene exists to move the plot along, as Bridges decides he must dry out, but it’s a shame that Cooper couldn’t have come up with a more clever device than this one.

Despite all this, Crazy Heart has many pleasures. The songs are great, and Bridges sings them well. Robert Duvall, who is one of the producers, shows up for a small role, reminding us all of this film’s ancestor, Tender Mercies. Watching Bridges and Duvall together is lovely. The film also contains a restrained performance by Colin Farrell as a big country music star who was mentored by Bridges.

But it all comes back to Jeff Bridges, who holds this film in the palm of his hand. He’s best during those scenes when the character is at his lowest–during a scene where he passes out over his toilet I could practically smell the vile odors that would have been emanating. When he wins the Oscar for Best Actor I won’t mind a bit, it’s a shame the material doesn’t match the performance.