We've been here before, but I cannot find fault with the journeying back if it means experiencing something like Crazy Heart; a toe-tapping, handsomely made character drama.

Rating: 7/10 (24 March 2011)

I noted that 2006 French film The Singer was a lot like Aronofsky's 2009 film The Wrestler; a man with a rich history within a particular field, now apparently relegated to clinging on to his profession as well as livelihood as everything else around him appears to just descend into chaos and strife. This, as relationships with those around him appeared to strike up just as much as physical and mental well-being appeared to deteriorate in equal measure. Crazy Heart, the really rather accomplished debut film from American Scott Cooper – a man more commonly associated with support acting, completes a retrospective triangle or trilogy of error in this regard; producing a film feeding off of The Wrestler's success which in turn owed a great debt to The Singer which in turn, Crazy Heart feels somewhat similar to. The immense positives you take out of it are that in the lead role, a certain Jeff Bridges tears through the material in a fashion that makes it watchable all the way through despite prior exposure to this sort of material, and in a similar vein, director Cooper's competence in his ability to sear through the framework and the general subject matter as if he's been directing for most of his life, made particularly impressive given his background and (lack of) previous experience within this field.
The film's lead, a burning out and close to all but washed up country singer I read Cooper told his lead was essentially "the fifth Highwayman", is a certain Otis "Bad" Blake; a man with former glories and a rich history of singing and song writing many of whom know of. When we first encounter him, it's in the present day and we see him driving a fair old distance so as to arrive at a local bowling alley complex to do a performing of all the old favourites to an eager crowd. His arrival sees his name in the largest font possible upon the advertising hoarding towering over the complex and car park, but the fact that "winter leagues are forming" gets the top billing is a sure sign of the sorts of odd-jobs he appears to be getting by on nowadays. Inside, the manager greets him eagerly and enthusiastically; a great admirer, while later on a similarly aged store clerk does the same, as does a younger member of a backing group whom was always very fond of his guitar work – the generational link here of people of most ages having heard of Blake establishing a popularity it seems he had amongst many. The alley owner offers free meals and bowling, the item of drink on the other hand is somewhat taboo; a disagreement after prior niceties a blot on the communication and settles something on the back-burner.
As a character, Blake appears every bit as off the cusp and spontaneous as his 'bad' tag would suggest; after previously informing the store patron he would perform what is his favourite song for him and his wife at the evening's concert, Blake stumbles off stage after gearing up the backing group and is promptly sick in a trash can outside; this, before ambling back on stage to pick up the song's proverbial pieces and play it all out. The man and his wife, for whom it was requested, do not seem necessarily offended nor bothered by something so personal and something so rare in its overall happening to be affected in this way, Blake being what he is and everything that comes with it; a later instance somewhere else in which he hops off stage to do a sudden dance with a local woman in the crowd very much embedding an impromptu persona. Unlike Xavier Giannoli's The Singer, there is no distinction between on and off stage persona as Depardieu's lead sung romantic ballads for couples over 60 but occupied grimy, smoky dressing rooms back stage; Blake is this ferocious, sweaty, scatty, wacky, grizzled man on and away from the limelight and everybody appears to love him all the more for it.
The crux of the film is a romantic entanglement with Maggie Gyllenhaal's Jean Craddock, a reporter local to the South West in which Blake performed his first gig of the film. Like Blake, she is sceptic of relationships and commitment but has an apparent deeply routed affection for country music; both parties have had failed marriages and watching their bond slowly unravel with all this in mind is rather affecting, Cooper's attention to characterisation frank and upfront without ever pretending to be anything of more immense depth than that of what it is. The bond additionally allows Blake to undergo a process more directly linked to that of his failure in the role of a father, when Craddock's infant son named Buddy sees Blake given the chance to bond with an infant boy in the reverse manner he did so to his distanced and outcast own.
The film additionally explores his newfound sense of ability to write music again, when Colin Farrell's younger and more youth orientated country singer named Tommy Sweet with whom Blake shares a shadowy past despite intensely mentoring him years ago. We go on to cover Blake's life following the introducing of Craddock to proceedings, a verbal confirmation by doctors that our lead is on a one way path to ruin due to the alcohol consumption we've come to already realise was doing him little in the way of favours and his persistent chain smoking highlighting what it is he has to battle; with Craddock and her son manifestations of what it is he has to loose after previously having very little to fight for. On top of its core studies and general characterisation, Crazy Heart impressively welds in all its other content to form an adept and consummate piece which balances grizzled, dishevelled tones with friendlier and bouncier overall feeling; the short-and-large of it resulting in a really watchable piece.