On the couch

There’s a scary moment near the end of Crazy Heart.
It’s notable because Scott Cooper’s Jeff Bridges-starring drama about an alcoholic country and western singer’s last chance at love isn’t the most obvious material to feature something so frightening.
Nevertheless, it’s a moment of real, honest to God, too-horrible-to-watch-but-I-can’t-look-away horror and it doesn’t involve blood, torture, demonic Asian children, poltergeists or Miley Cyrus. Bridges, as the life and whiskey-battered ‘Bad’ Blake, loses a kid in a supermarket. That’s it. No aliens or amputations. Just a moment of pure cold sweat-inducing panic that anyone, anyone who has lost something they really, really shouldn’t have can empathise with.
It’s a well-written, well-acted moment that characterises the film. Beyond the circumstances, “a washed-up country music star subsidises his alcoholism playing gigs in the most far flung of Podunk venues, making time to indulge in one night stands and bouts of resenting his former protégé, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) who is now a huge star”,­ the film’s drama stems from themes that are familiar and immediately accessible for the audience.
Bad Blake begins the film old and bitter but still in possession of considerable and well practiced charm. A chance meeting with a young journalist, Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her young son over the course of a weekend sets up the sort of gentle and, dare I say it, heartwarming story of love and redemption punctuated by some really good songs.
As is so often the way, the path of true love doesn’t run smoothly. Life with an alcoholic or a professional musician is never easy and the two together make for a rocky road. Can Blake stop the boozing and learn to swallow his pride to further his career? Will Jean take a risk on an old man and a chance at happiness?
What’s most striking about Crazy Heart is how natural it all feels. The story proceeds at an unhurried pace with the twists and turns coming, as they do in real life, without any prior notification or musical cue. The music, when it does come though, is of the finest kind. If you’re a fan of the country and western genre you’re in for a treat because the songs are fantastic – ­ good enough even to make even the most vigorous C&W hater consider changing their tune.
Witty, well-written tunes that scream BUY MY SOUNDTRACK slip into the film without making a fuss and, unlike many musical interludes, actually have a bearing on the story. The sense of the natural and the real is again heightened by the fact that all the songs performed are sung live by the actors themselves, revealing in all cases the potential for a handy sideline job if any of them wanted to indulge it.
In the hands of other performers, the relationship between Blake and Craddock could have come across as creepy or just plain inappropriate (Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment ­ I’m looking at you).
Instead, Bridges’s gradually receding self-destructiveness and Gyllenhaal’s strong, resilient mother who longs for some support but is wary of giving up her independence make an odd but believable couple. As with The Wrestler, a film Crazy Heart cannot avoid comparison to, small character turns from familiar actors add a depth to the story that it might otherwise miss. In particular Colin Farrell’s Tommy Sweet and Robert Duvall stand out for their unflashy but high quality cameos.
Farrell’s Sweet is a decent bloke just looking after his own best. More than familiar with constant adultion himself, the Dublin actor shows again that he is at his best when not cast as a film’s central character.
Duvall, meanwhile is a class act from top to toe and does nothing in his role as Blake’s best mate Wayne to change this opinion. It is of course Jeff Bridges who comes out best from the film, winning a best actor Oscar for his role.
But in retrospect it could have become one of the most famous also-rans in Academy history given it is an extremely quiet and self-controlled performance with little of the showboating or scenery chewing so often beloved of the Hollywood voting elite.
Slow, thoughtful and rewarding, there should be more films like this one but, sadly, there aren’t. So make sure to take a good chance when it’s on offer.