Great love-song to the world of country music

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2011)

It was a rare heartwarming moment for me during the 2010 Oscars when Jeff Bridges won the Best Actor award and received a standing ovation from his colleagues and peers a like. He is an actor that was seemingly never going to receive the kind of recognition and status to which he so fully deserved. His films have ranged from computer game-film hybrid nerd-fest Tron, to Peter Bogdanovich's masterpiece (and one of my all- time favourite films) The Last Picture Show. After winning the award for this film, he seems to have been bumped up to the A-list, receiving another nomination this year for the exceptional True Grit. The film is pretty damn good too, surprisingly.
I say surprisingly as the story of an over-the-hill country singer seeking redemption seems like Oscar bait to me, but I found it a rather uplifting experience, and a piece of quality drama. Bridges plays the legendary Bad Blake, who, when we meet him, is emptying a bottle of his own p**s onto the car park floor upon his arrival at a bowling alley where he is due to play his next gig. He has returned to his home, and the locals are excited to see him sing some of his classic tunes and live up to his bad boy name. Yet he is unhappy. He spends his time on his own in his fleapit motel room, drinking his favourite whisky and chain-smoking cigarettes, and arguing with his hard-working manager who is keen to buddy him up with his protégé Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell). There is unspoken resentment from Blake for Sweet, who seems to be highly successful while Blake wallows in misery, his time long since past. However, Blake seems to be awoken from his self-destructiveness when he is interviewed by the daughter of a liquor store owner, Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is as taken by him as he is by her. Living up to his name, Bad is always one step from screwing it up, as his drinking becomes a bigger problem than he imagined.
The main strength of the film is the genuine unlikeability of Blake. He is rude, offensive and in his first performance in front of his home crowd, spends the majority of the time throwing up in a bin outside while his backing band plays an instrumental on a loop awaiting his return. He also drinks to excess, throwing away his ability and refusing to write new material due to his jealousy of a younger and more successful emergent in Sweet. As he opens up to Jean, we also discover he has a son he hasn't seen in well over a decade, and has possibly fathered more that he doesn't know about. During an uncomfortable and achingly sad scene, he phones up the mother of his son and is informed of her death, and finds out his son wants nothing to do with him. Describing the film, it actually sounds like something you would have seen in other films countless times, but here the script is written with such heart, and the performance are so great, that it doesn't matter.
Another highlight is the performance of Maggie Gyllenhall. I've long since been a fan since her turn in the excellent Secretary, and here she is better. Unfortunately she has been unfairly drowned out by the masterclass of Bridges. She is both brittle and strong, looking after her son as a single mother, and being unable to resist the charms of Blake while always being aware of the danger of falling for someone like him. In a scene where she admits their relationship is an accident waiting to happen, Gyllenhaal's face is torn up by resentment and defeated sadness.
For a film with so much music, this could have fallen flat on it's face. But within the trusted care of music legend T-Bone Burnett, who has worked with the Coen brothers on a number of occasions, and Ryan Bingham, the music and the on-stage performances of Bridges are electric. The pair won the Oscar for Original Song, for the wonderful 'The Weary Kind', which Blake writes at the start of his road to redemption.
A great love-song to the world of country music and the legends that have eclipsed the genre, as well as being a good story very well told.
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