The "Bad" and the Beautiful...

Rating: 8/10 (15 September 2019)

"Crazy Heart" made me realize how full of narrative clichés the "music" genre is. Here we have the run-down alcoholic singer, the struggling mother, the romantic subplot, the musical performance that turns sour, the rehab sequence and so on and so forth. "Crazy Heart" has all of these... and yet it never falls in the caricature, it features situations we're familiar with but thanks to Scott Cooper's low-key and non-sensational directing, to the nuanced Oscar-nominated performances from Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhall, "Crazy Heart" goes on smoothly and fluidly like a sweet Country ballad, without any false note.
Low-key is the word, the film and Bridges' acting never insist on making the faded star Bad Blake an object of pathos, only his situation is, which isn't the same. This is a man entering his sixties, he's twice past his prime: country music appeals to blue-collar folks of his generation while his momentum is compromised by the rise of "hip" stars like Tommy Sweet (Collin Farrell) whose fans never heard of Blake. He understands he's a relic from the past and not à la Hank Williams. And so he spends his time making tours from one small town to another, in places where he can't even put the whisky on his tab, the days of glory are over and the present ones are spent in the company of bottles of whisky in shabby motels. His routine is eventually broken by phone calls from his manager, sending him to another contract in another town in the middle of nowhere.
Now, describing this routine isn't just to fill paragraphs, the film's plot (if we can call it so) doesn't break the routine but is diluted in, just like Blake isn't a pathetic guy but a good person and a talented artist bogged down in a pathetic routine. And the film does work like a routine, preparing us for something "big" that never happens, it's slow-paced but so confident over its material that it doesn't try to go for the easy way, which would be convenient since Blake is a fictional character. His first concert for instance, is a disaster, he spends most of his time taking breaks and go puke in a trash-bin -I liked the touch where his glasses fall inside and got spilled over- but we never get any aftermath of that concert: no argument with his manager, no cancelled concert, no one giving him a bad press, all we see is an old groupie sharing his bed (not exactly a bimbo, she was the nasty pageant official in "Little Miss Sunshine"). We get it, his contracts are so punctual that the incidents have no consequences, a reason why he's probably drowning his sorrow in alcohol.
Maybe Blake's waiting unconsciously for the incident with the gravest consequence, maybe this is a man in need for help who doesn't want to admit it. We suspect something might happen when he meets Jean, a wannabe journalist who comes interviewing him; the interview allows us to learn a little more about the man less from the answers but the way he delivers them. Blake doesn't want to talk about his real name, neither about his son but he keeps his smile on and even asks Jean private questions. Any lesser film would have made an expositional excuse out of the interview, in fact it's a very tender scene, never pressed too hard, where we can see some mutual attraction between the two. Both have made mistakes in their lives, both wish to trust the future and both see in each other a light of hope they were desperately waiting for, the chemistry is inevitable. The romance, like pretty much the rest of the film, is made of quiet and genuinely sweet moments until the one episode that will make Blake realize his life was going downhill.
I'm not spoiling here since there's a good deal of incidents throughout the film, a life pattern that can't be a matter of bad luck. Is Blake suicidal? It's more complex than that, the man has troubles but his troubles inspire him. And that's something I've noticed with country music and even country-related movies, music is the storyteller, country music expresses the struggle of small-town blue-collar men, maybe like the soul music of white people, taking its roots in the old folks' repertoire. Blake's music is basically his sordid life translated into poetry, the more he suffers, the better he sings, and the opposite is true. But there's too much suffering a man can take and even if he's got a lot of fans, people who like him, and forgive him, through Jean, Blake realizes his need to be loved again and forgiven. In a poignant scene, he tries to call his lost son and makes amends but doesn't get nothing from him. Blake's friend (Robert Duvall) points out that he made the right step, and at least he can forgive himself.
And I'm glad the film never went to spectacular emotional stunts. Watching the deleted scenes in the DVD, I was shocked by one where Bad ended up thrown in the mud and have a breakdown, shouting his real name, this is the kind of scenes the film didn't need and I'm glad it was removed, Bridges is the kind of actor who doesn't need such artifices to win an Oscar. His well-meaning average-Joe aura is enough to make Blake the object of a fascinating character study, as a man going through a double rehabilitation, one against his addiction and another to earn self-respect, to forgive himself before those he love forgive him.
This is a sober but meaningful music drama and maybe the reason why country films works despite so many familiar situations Is because the contemplation of life, not rebellion, is the essence of country music, a genre about simple people with complex problems, but that know how to tell their stories with simplicity and sensibility.