Half a Great Movie

Rating: 5/10 (25 November 2010)

Anyone here shocked that famous musicians take a drink now and again? That they often live lives of excess that lead to self-destructive habits that average people might find distasteful or even frightening? My problem with 'Crazy Heart,' Fox Searchlight's 2009 film about a fading country and western star and his romance with an average person is not that it wasn't authentic.
My problem was whether it was a story worth telling.
The arc of the film unfolds as we meet Bad Blake, an aging and alcoholic country singer in the vein, perhaps, of Don Williams, played expertly by Jeff Bridges. Blake's glory days have passed and he is reduced to playing bowling alleys, quibbling over bar bills and laying unglamorous fans. We observe him relying on the kindness of strangers and arguing with his agent over money until he is asked to give a budding young reporter an interview. The reporter, Jean Craddock, is played credibly by Maggie Gyllenhaal who at this point seems destined to play the loyal but unlucky girlfriend of the socially marginal. Their romance flares, fades, and fizzles as Blake struggles professionally and Jean tries to fit him into the life she's made with her young son.
We're expected to understand and care about this relationship even though we only see one character experiencing it. We learn all about Blake in the first 15 minutes of the film – down to what he does with his urine on long road-trips. But Craddock's story is told entirely in relation to Blake's. Her world, her ambitions and her history all go unexplored. That's an odd choice considering the plot credits her with changing the course of Blake's whole life. We learn that she's smart, she's got a little boy, she's got a nice body and that for some reason, she's got a soft spot for this physically unappealing singer easily twice her age. And that's – it! Her primary virtue seems to be not being one of a thousand bimbos out to attach themselves in some way to Blake's fame.
Big deal.
'Crazy Heart' wants to be an interesting story about lovers from two different worlds set to music. About characters from two distinct Americas separated by time and about all the interesting questions their union might provoke. Questions its audience can relate to, like can a woman raised on Sesame Street and Gloria Steinem find her inner Tammy Wynette and stand by her man? Should she? Can famous people ever let go of their need for blind adoration and make a real relationship work? Is Jean in a relationship with a man twice her age because she really loves him? Or is it just the fame after all? Will Blake's worn out notoriety always be a crutch he can't let go of?
We'll never know because this film reaches for its own crutch when it turns into a cautionary tale about alcoholism. That's right, instead of having the courage and creativity to face up to the complex questions it asks to get you into the theatre and halfway through the movie, it instead lifts you up, puts you on its knee and tells you a ghost story about mean old Mr. Jack Daniels. And there is no clue it's coming. When we meet Blake we encounter, yes, a hard-drinking musician but one whose life is controlled more by bad choices, ego-mania, and fading fortune.
Many important performers were and continue to be functioning addicts. Some of them, like Elvis, succumb to their addictions and many more, like Keith Richards, do not. In either case, what makes them interesting to us is their art, not their addictions. And in this case, Blake's art drives all the other provocative questions this movie could have been about. We know that. Why didn't the screenwriters for 'Crazy Heart' know that?
What Jean ultimately decides is the most important part of her relationship with Blake is his addiction. And again, as mentioned, authenticity is not this film's failing. In an America in which corporate values have supplanted traditional ones; where nobody is indispensable and child-worshipping soccer moms control middle-class family culture, Jean's verdict is absolutely true to life.
But the poster for 'Crazy Heart' is a romantic image of a handsome, thoughtful and earnest musician leaning over his guitar as a gentle breeze pushes back his hair. Makes you think this is a thoughtful movie about the truth of a man's music. Like Prince in 'Purple Rain.' If they'd wanted to make an accurate poster they should have shown Jean running Blake over with a stroller on her way out of Starbucks as he lay supine in the gutter in a pile of empty beer bottles.
False advertising. It's called 'Crazy HEART,' not 'Crazy Drunk.'
Blake's one hope for redemption, of course, involves facing his addiction like a good boy and making sure the money he earns from now on is used for anything besides his own personal enjoyment or welfare.
The accolades 'Crazy Heart' has garnered seem to be about what this movie almost was. What it could have been. It was almost an intergenerational love-story set to some decent country music. What it ends up being is yet another chance for the coffee-house crowd and Hollywood types to cluck their tongues and snigger as yet another worn-out symbol of American virility shatters against the prow of political correctness. The ending is there to make us feel less guilty for laughing: "See -- it was good for the old guy!"
Get a life.
This movie review by Erik Gloor