CRAZY HEART
When we meet Bad Blake, the once famous country singer played in this film by Jeff Bridges, it seems like we may have seen him before. He’s driving a beat up Jeep from the pre-SUV era through a stunning New Mexico landscape, a song of lament in the background. He argues with his manager as he pulls up to his next gig in a bowling alley. He doesn’t rehearse with his backup band, and then drunk barely pulls out enough of a performance to suggest what once was. The fans in the alley look on nostalgically, and there’s always one to keep him company after the show is over.
The stage is set quickly for this story of redemption. Bad isn’t really “bad” after all and he’s not “Leaving Las Vegas,” he’s not that self-destructive. Bridges has a sweet, easygoing look and manner that has governed most of his career. It was manipulated, to good effect, in the 80s thriller, Jagged Edge. But to play a baddie, he has to puff up and shave his head as he did in Iron Man and I still almost rooted for him, because, as we all know, Robert Downey Jr. is definitely more menacing. In this instance, since we pretty much know where he’s headed, the question becomes what route will take him there, who or what will save him.
It starts with a girl, a much younger one named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal.) It’s a big age gap and I wasn’t entirely convinced that she would fall for this 57 year old mess of a man, but then again, “it’s Jeff Bridges,” as Gyllenhaal confided in an interview. She was referring to the first time she introduced herself to him some years earlier and he promised that they would work together some day. The few love scenes are low key with minimal flesh or awkward writhing, so there’s no yuk factor. We are meant to wonder though how a gal like Jean, trying to be a responsible mother and professional journalist , gets caught up with an alcoholic musician.
She hears him sing, watches him perform, sits right next to him in bed as he composes a beautiful song for her. That’s how she and we fall for him. This film is a musical romance and a tour de force for the Dude. Bridges, who is a musician and has been playing and singing since he was a kid, thrashes through his painful transformation, narrating his life with songs. Composers T Bone Burnett, the late Stephen Bruton and newcomer Ryan Bingham (no relation to the George Clooney character in Up In the Air). have taken roots music influences and given Bad Blake a sound that’s traceable to old timers like George Jones, Jimmy Rogers, Hank Williams, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Howlin’ Wolf making the film an all encompassing experience, a joy to watch, listen to and just feel.
Crazy Heart is now playing.
Directed by Scott Cooper; screenplay by Scott Cooper based on the novel by Thomas Cobb; produced by Scott Cooper, Robert Duvall, Rob Carliner, T Bone Burnett and Judy Cairo; Director of Photography, Barry Markowitz; edited by John Axelrod; music by Stephen Bruton and T Bone Burnett. Released by Fox Searchlight. Running time: 111 minutes.
With: Jeff Bridges (Bad Blake); Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jean Craddock); Robert Duvall (Wayne); Colin Farrell (Tommy Sweet) and Jack Nation (Buddy.)
