Picking Up Your Life

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2011)

Crazy Heart was shot on a relatively small budget and in less than a month. But it proved to be one of those films that kind of sneaks up on the movie-going public. And you don't necessarily have to be a country and western fan to appreciate it.
Jeff Bridges stars and is essentially the whole show as an over the hill country and western icon who's reduced to playing cheap honky-tonks in those states where this music predominates. At one time he had a protégé, a Toby Keith like new country star played by Colin Farrell, but in those famous words from On The Waterfront, Bridges is riding on his one way ticket to Palookaville and the ride isn't finished.
Substance abuse has ruined this man's life and it actually looks like Farrell is going the same way if he doesn't watch himself. But Bridges meets up with young divorced journalist Maggie Gyllenhaal with a young son and a crisis with the young kid convinces Bridges he'd better mend his ways.
Supposedly Bridges modeled his Oscar winning performance on Kris Kristofferson. I saw that and a bit of Willie Nelson in Bridges on the screen. Whatever he did it sure worked because this is the role of a lifetime.
Besides the Best Actor Oscar that Jeff Bridges won, Crazy Heart has a nice score of country songs of which The Weary Kind won the film's second Oscar for Best Song. It's a good song on its own merits, but it also isn't like there's much to choose from in that category, hasn't been in a couple of generations.
And you don't have to be a fan of Jeff Bridges or country music to appreciate what a great little film Crazy Heart is.