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Crazy Heart Stars: Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Maggie Gyllenhaal Writer and Director: Scott Cooper Producer: T-Bone Burnette, Robert Duvall Released by Fox Search Light Running Time: 120 minutes Rated: R "Once he had a future full of money, love and dreams...." Kris Kristoferson Jeff Bridge's Bad Blake has been around. Maybe for too long. At least at the stage of his life we encounter him in the new film,Crazy Heart. Like Kris Kristoferson's quintessential country musician he wrote about in The Pilgrim Chapter 32, He's a 'walking contradiction partly truth and partly fiction/Taking ever wrong directions on his lonely way back home.' But, between his days of being a country legend and the present day opening of this film,he's gone from a star to a has-been resigned to playing bowling alleys and small honky tonks. His decline has been slow and steady. This is familiar dramatic terrain, but what drives the film is the focused direction and screenwriting of Scott Cooper. But it's the authentic-to-the-bone performance of Jeff Bridges who appears in nearly every frame. Like the earlier and influential,Tender Mercies, it works on several levels. A story of personal redemption, subtle in its drama and generous with its actors, the film captures the everyday magic of creating a song and re-creating a life. Bridges moves from scene to scene drinking whiskey, chain smoking, coughing through his lies and peering through his weary, aging bloodshot eyes with bewilderment at the world where he has found himself trapped. Bridges' musical performance captures Bad Blake(visually modeled on Waylon Jennings) on small stages and venues singing drunk, sober, mechanically, joyfully and with all of the charisma of a veteran country singer. He captures the mood and feeling of a singer-songwriter who stays on the road...  The
character Bad Blake, has spent time being the 'good timing man' for
too long. It all catches up with him, but not in the way most of these
type of films do......It's more Tender Mercies than the rarely seen Payday
with Rip Torn. Not self-destruction but self-redemption. The music by Stephen
Bruton is beautiful, fun and authentic to the period of time Blake might
have been famous. Bruton spent many years in Kristoferson's Border
Lords before launching a singer-songwriter career on his own. He can been
seen in the Kris/Willie Movie Songwriter from the 80's. Jeff Bridges
plays the character to perfection. It will be good to see him win an Oscar
just so he can pay his tribute to the oft forgotten lonesome pickers still
out there on the road keeping the music alive.
To his credit, Cooper has kept the cliche's of recovery from substance abuse to a minimum. When Blake finally calls his best friend, well played by Robert Duvall, he asks for help 'getting sober.' After sixteen months, he returns to his lost girl friend, but she doesn't accept him. After Blake negligent and drunk lost her four year old son, this is too much, even if he is sober. When he tries to contact his estranged son, he's met with coldness and indifference. This is the kind of honesty and realism to be expected for those who face sobriety rather than the oft repeated happy ending. But, the off into the sunset ending allows Bad Blake the redemption of a hit song and a renewed career. The song, "The Weary Kind" which weaves it's way through the story finally says it all as Blake reaches for one more glimpse of hope in his life. And the film allows us the gift of a skillfully crafted gem of performance by Jeff Bridges. This ain’t no place for the weary kind And this ain’t no place to lose your mind And this ain’t no place to fall behind Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try..... http://www.foxsearchlight.com/crazyheart/ Terry Roland
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