Film review: Crazy Heart

Published on Sunday 28 February 2010 10:34

CRAZY HEART (15) Director: Scott Cooper Running time: 112 minutes * * * *

JEFF Bridges has always been an underrated actor, probably because the sleepy-eyed integrity of his performances seems so effortless that you can forget it's Bridges playing an alien, a boxer, a president, Wild Bill Hickok or a serial killer. But with Crazy Heart he has a role that makes his unforced casualness something to admire.

As Bad Blake, he's a 57-year-old broke alcoholic country star, 30 years past his prime, playing gigs in bowling alleys for those who remember his handful of hits. Yet, although his career may be washed up, he's not a total washout. His audiences are small but also enthusiastic. Blake is smart enough to be self-aware in his decline, and even at his lowest point he never slurs during his gigs and makes sure he throws up offstage. He may be committing slow suicide, but he's professional, charming and benign, and people around him still believe that Blake can turn his life around if he wrote some new material; except new songs are one thing he doesn't have.

Crazy Heart is tolerant of drunk old men but it's not quite as charitable towards older women: at one point Blake sleeps with a middle-aged groupie and the camera almost shudders over her worn face and loose skin while he creeps out of her house the morning after.

Jean is a more fitting partner for a 60-year-old man, at least in Hollywood terms, because she's half his age, pretty and played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Jean is a starry-eyed reporter and arrives at his motel room for an interview while he's drinking and watching porn. The one topic he doesn't want to discuss is his relationship with singer Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), a former protg who is now a stadium-filling superstar. To stop Jean pushing for details, he gently tells her she "makes the room look bad".

Maybe Jean is too guarded to fall for someone like Blake, but first-time writer-director Scott Cooper has crafted a film that often turns left when you expect it to turn right. When Blake finally agrees to be the opening act for Sweet, it turns out that his old rival isn't the swaggering swell-headed clich you might expect, and it leads to a fantastic sequence where Sweet sneaks on stage during Blake's set to sing alongside him. Sweet thinks he's being supportive, but Blake resents the intrusion – and all of this is telegraphed through small private glances while the two put over a show.

If you're not fond of country music (I'm not), then Crazy Heart may sound like the kind of cracker-barrel movie you should avoid. Bridges will change your mind – even though the themes and setting are remarkably similar to Tender Mercies, a movie which won Robert Duvall an Oscar for his portrait of a broken, boozy country singer. Crazy Heart tacitly and harmoniously acknowledges this: Duvall is one of its producers and he pops up as an old pal of Blake's, a recovering alcoholic who runs a bar. And at one point Bad Blake tries out a rare new song on Jean, who tells him it sounds familiar. "That's the way it is with the good ones," he says. "You're sure you've heard them before." And if that's true of songs, it also applies to gracious movies and accomplished performances.

On general release from Friday

This article was originally published in Scotland on Sunday on 28 February 2010