Crazy Heart

Coun­try music is heart and soul. It is tragedy, romance, and lament. It’s the beat of Mid­dle Amer­i­ca. It’s Dol­ly and Cash and Pat­sy. It’s easy lis­ten­ing but it’s essen­tial. A film about a wan­ing coun­try music star needs a heart­beat and sound­track to match; both of which are pal­pa­bly miss­ing from Crazy Heart.

Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake. Trail­ing the States alone, play­ing Mex­i­can bars and bowl­ing alleys, the guy pees in a bot­tle, appears inca­pable of doing up either belt or fly, and peers out at the world from the bot­tom of a whisky tumbler.

From over the rotun­da that is his bel­ly he spies and speaks to jour­nal­ist Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal, who, for some con­trived rea­son, appears as his con­science – a mir­ror in which Blake sees him­self and finds the vision shab­by. Why she climbs into his bed and opens both her own life and that of her four-year-old son is nev­er explained. Whether father fig­ure or exer­cise in self-abuse, their rela­tion­ship is what wakes him.

It’s not pos­si­ble to flaw Bridges here. Akin to Fal­staff, the detail of his char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion – from stag­ger to cough to swag­ger to song – is fas­ci­nat­ing. But he needs more thor­ough con­tex­tu­al­i­sa­tion to fly.

Poten­tial­i­ties are rife but momen­tary. When we meet his neme­sis and pro­tégé Tom­my Sweet (an uncred­it­ed Col­in Far­rell), their antag­o­nism, like his rela­tion­ship with Gyl­len­haal, is intan­gi­ble. Whether the young gun rep­re­sents his for­mer self, his reac­tion to decrepi­tude, or the son he nev­er had is depict­ed sim­ply in a duet they sing togeth­er; cam­era cir­cling, rem­i­nis­cent of John­ny and June walk­ing the line. It’s curi­ous and emo­tive but hard­ly insightful.

Sim­i­lar­ly, there’s a won­der­ful scene with Bridges and Robert Duvall in a fish­ing boat, sug­ges­tive of a rela­tion­ship that we nev­er see. It’s as if the empha­sis is con­tra­pun­tal – all slight­ly off the beat.

Debut writer/​director Scott Coop­er clear­ly has poten­tial, but he has trust­ed too much in his star alone with­out giv­ing him a back­ing band, decent lyrics or a real pas­sage to redemp­tion. Bridges sings, ​“Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try.” Coop­er might do the same.