There wasn't much I liked about the Golden Globes last night (including the fact that I watched them), but Ricky Gervais did get in this hilarious barb and Jeff Bridges deservingly took home the Best Actor in a Drama for his role in Crazy Heart.
I caught Crazy Heart at the Arclight in Hollywood last weekend and really enjoyed it. As I've established fairly well on this blog, I'm a sucker for movies about music, so this one, which tells the story of Bridges as the fictional, washed-up country star, Bad Blake, already had a leg up.
Bad Blake was a fantastic character and Bridges played him brilliantly. At the onset, Blake is a man who is doing the only thing he knows how to do (singing country songs), even though his heyday is long past and he has to drive himself to pathetic gigs in a failing truck. The initial show, in which he is dismayed to find he's been booked to play a bowling alley, is an excellent choice to tell the viewer all we need to know about his career. Blake, though on some levels a proud, uncompromising man, is repeatedly forced to humble himself, whether that means taking a gig opening for his old protege, Tommy Sweet, (played well by Colin Farrell) or ending a set early on account of drunkenness.
One element I found particularly poignant was the way that his songwriting came back to life as he awoke from the sleepwalk that his life had been over the past few years. When Sweet asks Blake to write him some new material, Blake initially says no, telling him he hasn't written in years and that there are already too many songs in the world. Yet, once he finds himself recuperating under the care of Gyllenhaal's character, he is reinvigorated and the songs start pouring out of him. As one who has written songs and, more importantly, struggled with writing songs, this storyline resonated with me as sometimes you just don't feel like writing songs and forcing it only produces a slew of mediocre fragments. But, in times of great emotion, good or bad, the act is more natural, the music seeming an inevitable byproduct of the condition. Bridges performs the songs beautifully and since the songs were all written by T Bone Burnett (who gave a wild ride of an acceptance speech at the Globes) they feel like real songs--the magnetism and success of Blake makes sense.
While it was mostly Bridge's performance and Blake's reawakening that made the movie work, some of the smaller details and elements of the film were also outstanding: Robert Duvall, a producer on the film, is charming, believable, and hilarious in his small role as a bartender and Blake's only true friend; the setting (the American Southwest) is wonderfully shown and expressed, the only appropriate backdrop for a movie about this brand of country music; and the writing is sharp, with many great, memorable lines.
I took some issue with Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance--mostly, I didn't think she played it right. I had to convince myself that her character would do and say certain things, instead of her convincing me. But, it didn't ruin it for me and on my checklist of what I like in movies, this film filled in a lot of boxes.
It's not a perfect film, but it's one that was easy for me to become engaged with. It may gain a lot of steam as the Oscars near since Bridges may now be the favorite, but there is a lot to enjoy even in addition to his compelling performance. A worth-while trip to the cinema, especially for those who like a little country music now and then.
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