This is the kind of movie designed to get Jeff Bridges (a deserved) Best Actor Oscar nomination, a movie that reminds us of his considerable talent and range. He takes the stage as comfortably as Jeff Lebowski moseyed along swiping other peoples’ carpets. He loves the microphone, he just happens to love drinking better. But he doesn’t come off stupefying drunk everyday, so his addiction is unknown to him. Maggie Gyllenhaal, as Jean, is a reporter who falls for his grizzled poet ways. Jean starts off interviewing Blake for the papers, and then soon enough Blake is babysitting her kid and staying over.
Many of the other actors are good (nods to Robert Duvall and Paul Herman) but the surprise is Colin Farrell, whom I can’t tell is actually good at singing or not. He gets away on his self-confidence – a projection of good acting. His character Tommy Sweet was an understudy, an opener, for Bad Blake years ago. Now Tommy is the superstar, perhaps because his mug looks good on record albums. Tommy makes attempts to cut Blake a break, but Blake is too proud to accept his graciousness but nevertheless takes on an opening act in Arizona which can re-jump his career.
Thanks to Tommy Sweet, the cantankerous Blake gets a chance to write songs again as another rebound. As you can guess, Blake gets a multitude of second chances but there are obstacles, a crisis or two that comes that are all caused, and self-inflicted, by Blake himself.
“Crazy Heart” is a movie where we observe a character slowly coveting a real life again that had been non-existent for years, and then slowly letting it slip out from under him. What good is life if you don’t have someone to share it with? That comes to Bad Blake at age 57. Gyllenhaal is always effective as the sensual girl who gives bad guys a second chance, she might be the only actress alive who can act with her cheekbones alone. But if you use the “honeymoon is over” metaphor, then you see a young woman asking credibly if Blake is really right for her. Watching her lose patience in their relationship is one of those things you can’t tear your eyes away from.
Somehow, you want more intimate exchanges between them in the second half. In a pivotal scene that raises Jean’s eyebrows, Blake on his bad leg scuttles through a shopping mall looking for a lost little boy. The culmination of this incident is realistically handled, an episode without a false note. It also closes on a moment as to why Bridges might not only be nominated for Best Actor, but might actually win if Morgan Freeman doesn’t.
The cutting could have been more spiky, and you certainly wish the movie rolled along faster – the directing by Scott Cooper is a little weak in third act as its slack and yet takes its shortcuts to reach its denouement. With all that said, you don’t have to be a fan of country music to find the crossover appeal of “Crazy Heart,” a film about mature relationships and professional exhaustion on the road.
The other movie out right now, “Up in the Air,” features George Clooney as a spry, tireless traveler. Bridges is tired and exhausted man, and uninterested in the news when the doctor said he has to change his eating and drinking habits. This is indeed a very full-bodied and uncompromised character portrait done by a tremendous actor.
Go to the official site at http://www.foxsearchlight.com/crazyheart/
Grade: B+
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