Review: Bridges offers touching, gutsy performance in 'Crazy Heart'

“Crazy Heart”
Directed by: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall
Rated: R

“Crazy Heart” may not be my favorite movie of the past year, but it's one of those rare films that is perfect in and of itself. There's not a false note in this story that's filled with music, booze and pain.

First-time director/screenwriter Scott Cooper (he's an actor by trade), his cast and the people who believed in the film enough to put money behind it (stars Jeff Bridges and Robert Duvall among them) pulled together to fashion a movie that already has a Cinderella story background and has been nominated for three Oscars. Bridges' performance has garnered him best actor awards from the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

“Crazy Heart” almost went directly to DVD, but Fox Searchlight picked it up after it wowed audiences at Sundance. It gained momentum and continues to do so. It sold out several showings at The Moxie in its opening weekend, and it seems it is the movie everyone is talking about.

Bridges gives a riveting performance – one that is so true to life that it seems, at times, the film is a documentary.

Much speculation surrounds who the hard-drinking, past-his-prime, country and western singer Bad Blake (played by Bridges) is based upon. Waylon Jennings? Bridges looks like him and sounds like him somewhat. Kris Kristofferson? Again, Bridges resembles him. Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Merle Haggard and Billy Joe Shaver all have been mentioned as well.

But one only has to look up the source material, the little known novel written by Thomas Cobb in 1987, to find that the author based the character of Bad Blake on country singer Hank Thompson.

Cobb, an English professor these days, wrote the story after seeing Thompson play a show in Houston in the early 1980's with a “pickup” band – local musicians for hire who back whomever comes through town and can't afford to keep a permanent band of his own. Cobb, who had interviewed many country stars of the time, was struck by seeing a man like Thompson, who had had a No. 1 hit with the song “The Wild Side of Life,” reduced to that level.

Bridges embodies the role to the maximum degree. As “Crazy Heart” opens we see a solo Bad Blake driving a weary SUV to a gig at a bowling alley in Clovis, New Mexico. He gets out of the vehicle and empties a plastic jug of its contents, obviously urine. The scene is a perfect setup. The viewer immediately knows what this character is going through. The character study gets deeper. Blake holes up in his motel room with a bottle of whiskey (given to him gratis by a fan who owns a local liquor store) and the leader of the pickup band comes over to ask about rehearsal. Blake shows up just before the show and, as always, wings it.

Blake is down and out but still has some of the perks afforded to a former star. He seems to be able to find at least one woman at every gig who still loves him – and is willing to love him for the night.

Then he meets Jane, (Maggie Gyllenhall), a newspaper reporter 25 years his junior who is doing a story about him. Despite being a drunken mess with other obvious problems, Bad Blake still has his charm. He woos Jane and inserts himself in her life.

A big part of that life is Jane's 4-year-old kid, Buddy. Blake has a son, now grown, who he last saw when the kid was 4. Buddy and Blake hit it off. Jane has her reservations, and Blake doesn't do anything to change her mind. There's a harrowing few minutes in Act Two where Buddy disappears after being in Blake's care.

After that, Jane realizes she is done.

There's redemption in Act Three when Blake finally realizes he has to go to rehab. He manages to get his career kick-started, but the story doesn't tie up everything with a happy ending. Some mistakes one can never undo, no matter how many new leaves are turned over.

“Crazy Heart” is a touching, emotionally charged film. Bridges, Gyllenhall, Duvall and Colin Farrell – who plays a hot young country music star and former protege of Blake's – obviously have their hearts in their roles. Campbell's direction is subtle and filled with realistic nuance.

It's a great movie.