Crazy Heart
(2009)
Likely to
be barely-remembered as “What was that film Jeff Bridges won the Oscar for?”
It’s his Blue Sky. You know, the one
Jessica Lange won the Oscar for. See what I mean? Not that Jeff didn’t deserve
the statue. This is a fine performance, but Crazy
Heart as a whole is merely so-so. Respectably told, but familiar and resolutely
unexceptional.
Bridges is
washed-up, alcoholic country music star “Bad” Blake, reduced to touring
third-rate venues such as bowling alleys (in an amusing nod to The Big Lebowski, Blake is informed he
must pay for his booze but he is
entitled to free bowling). His health is giving way and he hasn’t written a new
song in three years. He’s also perpetually feuding with his manager (James
Keane) and bears a grudge towards his protégé Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), who
has gone on to great things. When Blake meets Jean, (Maggie Gyllenhaal) a
single mother whose path crosses his when she interviews him for the local rag,
romance blossoms. Blake finds himself inspired again, and even accepts an olive
branch from Tommy (opening for one of his shows). But Blake’s addictions look
set to ruin a good thing.
Everyone involved
gives first class performances; this is the sort of movie where name actors working
for scale for the prestige value. Gyllenhaal makes a reactive role come alive,
but unfortunately her underwritten character can’t escape the realm of cliché. Farrell
is just sympathetic enough that you want Blake to get over himself already and
make amends. Robert Duvall (who co-produced) is a rock as Blake’s wise old bar
tender pal. And Scott Cooper, adapting Thomas Cobb’s novel and making his
directing debut, handles the material with subtlety and sensitivity.
But
troubled drunk narratives need to go that extra mile to break free from
predictability, and this one doesn’t quite make it (the scene where Blake loses
Jean’s son can be seen coming half an hour before it happens). While it comes
as a relief that Crazy Heart chooses
not to embrace a descent into a Leaving
Las Vegas-esque quagmire of self-indulgent misery, the route it does choose doesn’t quite ring true
either. Nevertheless, it earns points for not steering away from overly-sensational
twists and treating its characters with a low-key respect.
The other
legacy of this movie, besides the Oscar, is that looks like it is responsible
for Bridges adoption of late-career cowboy stylings. Grizzly growly Jeff, prone
to mumbling semi-coherently. Yep, that’s the guy in True Grit and R.I.P.D. If
he’s going to succumb to habit-forming typecasting, I want to see more of hippy
stoner Jeff. The only example of that we’ve seen of late is his TRON: Legacy turn.
***