Country Music, Faded Stardom, Liquor, and Age in Crazy Heart 
 
 Yesterday's honky-tonk hero, Bad Blake, arrives at a Clovis, New Mexico, bowling alley. It's another in a string of low-paying, low-turnout gigs with pickup bands half his age, grinding the Greatest Hits out of an old Fender Tremolux, including his breakout—with the chorus, "Funny how falling feels like flying . . . for a little while." Bad's not flying these days; he's dying slowly on a bourbon diet, holed up in motels watching Spanish-language smut. 
 
 Actor turned writer-director Scott Cooper adapted Crazy Heart from Thomas Cobb's 1987 novel (the title is a Hank Williams B-Side). Cobb wanted Waylon Jennings for Bad Blake; Jeff Bridges finally got the part, though the now deceased Waylon and Bad's other inspirations hang over it. Jennings's "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" gets soundtrack play; Bad's shabby-romantic look recalls Kris Kristofferson, his perpetual hangover, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down." The movie never specifies but seems to take place around '87, before cell phones eliminated distance, with the sad orneriness of country music more evident than it is today. It's easy to forget, as Billboard's Country charts fill with faintly twangy pop and lazy paeans to dogs and trucks, that this music has an atavistic darkness. Cobb wrote while Jennings was just detoxing from decades of storied self-abuse and Johnny Paycheck was serving time for a barroom shooting. 
 
 Bad has just about bottomed out when a small-time journalist, Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), meets him for a rare interview—and sticks around. Crazy Heart follows the slow recovery of atrophied emotional responses that starts when Bad gets involved with Jean and her young son. 
 
 Cooper knows exactly when a scene's over, fills his movie's margins with distinct bit players (Beth Grant's middle-aged groupie, Rick Dial's pudgy part-time keyboardist), and is a smart custodian to Bridges's Bad Blake. The part is a vindication of Bridges's unaffected talent and is his best in years. He's as good a reactor as actor, so patient and sedentary that his performance's quiet ache sneaks up on you when he's doing nothing more dramatic than settling onto a barstool. Bad recites his age as a refrain—"I'm 57 years old"—and it seems Bridges has lived them all. It's in the habitual gestures, the way he negotiates with a mic stand and passes a drink from his chest to the bedside table with a coil of the wrist—for Bad is usually sprawled and splayed. 
 
 The physical effects of Bad's drinking are almost luridly seen, lingering over his dry heaves, the soft, pale torso, his gut spilling out of his often unbuckled pants. The spiritual attrition feels harsher, as Cooper contrasts huddled, dank interiors with the big sky outdoors, and shows that the saddest thing about being a drunk is the memories that go missing. Jean worries she'll disappear in a blackout, too. Gyllenhaal, usually badly used and badly lit, doesn't make a false move here. Their June-November relationship works because of her lucidity and Bridges's easy-come charm. (An improbably virile career alcoholic, Bad is used to drifting into women and doesn't have to bully.) 
 
 Bad's other love—estranged—is Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), a former sideman, protégé, and surrogate son who has eclipsed his old boss's fame, selling out amphitheatres. You expect a showbiz grotesque, but when they reunite, Sweet is deferential toward Bad, embarrassed by their switched fortunes and maybe what the old man thinks of his cheesy-rakish Nashville makeover (he rather daringly wears a pair of dangly earrings). The duet, a spiritual-conversational tradition in country music, gives them one great, anxious scene. Having hired Bad as an opener, Tommy sneaks onstage to sing with him. He thinks he's supporting the old man; Bad resents having the biggest stage he's seen in a while being stolen and hates himself for envying the younger man. No one says any of this. It's all implicit in their exchange of glances, and epitomizes the movie's double-sided look at the relationship between private feelings and public performance. 
 
 In its attention to stage dynamics, Bad's dickering with sound guys, and the distinct personalities of his different pickup bands, Crazy Heart shows a rare knowledge and respect for real, played music. Robert Duvall's interest in country is long-standing—his first directorial outing, We're Not the Jet Set, was named after a George Jones–Tammy Wynette song. He plays Bad's hometown bartender and confessor with casual perfection, and is among the producers. Another is T-Bone Burnett, who wrote and arranged the film's songs with Stephen Bruton, a longtime Kristofferson collaborator who died this year. They sound like feasible hits; Bridges and Farrell sing their own parts—and well. 
 
 Made with Country Music Television money, Crazy Heart's winding road to Sundance avoided the superficial novelty of the "indie" market. The subject, rehabilitation, is old and resonant. (Says Waylon: "We've been the same way for years/We need to change.") No scene feels obligatory, and Crazy Heart shows a pragmatic but tender understanding of the relationship between physical breakdown and the discovery of morality. It's merely a well-done, adult American movie—that is to say, a rarity. ||||| Crazy Heart DRAMA: United States, 2009 U.S. Release Date: 2009-12-16 Running Length: 1:53 MPAA Classification: R (Profanity, Sexual Content) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cast: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jack Nation, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell Director: Scott Cooper Screenplay: Scott Cooper, based on the novel by Thomas Cobb Cinematography: Barry Markowitz Music: Stephen Bruton, T-Bone Burnett U.S. Distributor: Fox Searchlight Subtitles: none 
 
 Crazy Heart is the country music version of The Wrestler: a grizzled veteran whose days in the spotlight are behind him struggles to keep going while seeing the world through a haze of regret and booze. The story is unremarkable; the alcoholic coming to terms with an addiction and striving to overcome it has provided the framework for everything from compelling cinema to maudlin made-for-TV movies. What elevates Crazy Heart is the remarkable performance of Jeff Bridges. The Oscar buzz about Bridges, which began to build slowly before reaching a critical mass when Fox Searchlight decided to go to bat for him, is driving this production. Not to take anything away from Bridges' co-star, Maggie Gyllenhaal, or supporting performers Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell, but everything that is compelling about Crazy Heart is filtered through Bridges. He, more than the story or the direction of first-time filmmaker Scott Cooper or T-Bone Burnett's country/western songs, is the reason to set aside two hours to watch this. 
 
 Bridges is Bad Blake, a washed up country singer who has fallen so far down the entertainment ladder from his one-time A-list perch that there are no more letters to describe the rung where he currently dangles. He tours the southwest stopping in bowling alleys and bars to do sets primarily because he needs the money but also because, without the gigs, he'd have nothing to do with his life. His means of transportation is a beat-up pickup truck and his rare moments of sobriety are confined to the early mornings. During one song, he walks off stage and out the back door to throw up in a garbage can. Bad has a booster in hot young country star Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), but he's too proud and stubborn to accept Tommy's extended helping hand. Tommy views Bad as his mentor; Bad sees Tommy as an upstart who left him in the dust on the way to the top. 
 
 Bad's love life is defined by a long line of one night stands, typically with women whose names he doesn't know and whose faces he can't remember. That changes, however, with Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist he meets in Santa Fe. Inexplicably, she's as attracted to him as he is to her and they embark upon a relationship. For Bad, there's something extra in being with Jean than the opportunity to interact with an intelligent, independent woman. She has a four-year old son, Buddy (Jack Nation), who is the age that Bad's child was when the singer abandoned him a quarter of a century ago. Spending time with Buddy allows him to live out the illusion of being a father, and he contemplates making contact with his now-adult son. But the specter of Bad's alcoholic tendencies hangs like a pall over his every action, and one senses it's only a matter of time before he screws things up. 
 
 When one considers show business, the sad truth is that there are more Bad Blakes than there are Tommy Sweets. Bad's chosen genre is country/western, but he's like those once-popular rock 'n roll stars from the '60s playing half-empty venues while singing long-forgotten Top 40 hits and drowning their sorrows in booze. Bad's story is not unique. In fact, it's a near-perfect cliché, right down to the neglected son and the chance at a fresh start. The pattern is pretty much the same one we saw Mickey Rourke's character navigate during the course of The Wrestler (which, overall, was a better scripted motion picture). At least this movie ends on a note that is less nihilistic. 
 
 Considering his longevity, popularity, and ability, it's hard to believe Bridges has never won an Oscar. This should represent his fifth nomination and second as a leading man (he was previously one of the Chosen Five in 1985 for Starman). As has so often been the case throughout his career, Bridges becomes the character. He buries himself so thoroughly in the role that there's nothing of the actor remaining. At times, he more closely resembles Nick Nolte and Kris Kristofferson than Jeff Bridges. Yet this is the same guy who has a secondary part in The Men Who Stare at Goats. Bridges can also sing, which is an important qualification for playing Bad Blake, since the guy was once a top country star. The actor's intensity is unflagging, his attention to detail exacting. He gets everything right, from the slow, shambling gait of someone carrying around more weight than his 57 years to the dead look in his eyes - the mark of someone who has given up. Yet, on those occasions when he picks up a guitar and lets his fingers dance across the strings, some vestige of who he once was is awakened. The other actors in Crazy Heart do their jobs, including Maggie Gyllenhaal (as the obligatory love interest) and Robert Duvall, who is on hand primarily for his name (his part is inconsequential), but they are merely in low orbits around Bridges. This is his film. 
 
 Crazy Heart is a labor of love for many of those involved. Duvall's participation will cause many to invoke the title of Tender Mercies (there are similarities), and he matches his on-screen appearance with an off-screen producer credit - something he shares with Bridges. For his part, Cooper, an actor by trade, wrote, directed, and produced the movie. Until about a month ago, no one had heard of Crazy Heart and Bridges' interpretation of Bad was the best performance of 2009 no one had seen. Now, with Fox Searchlight's push to get the movie into the light, it's possible this could turn into the best performance of 2009 that Oscar voters will see. 
 
 Discuss this topic in the ReelViews Forums. ||||| As has-been country singer Bad Blake (great name), Jeff Bridges looks like something scraped off the bowling alleys he's been reduced to playing. His beard redefines scraggly. His guitar can't hide his gut. His voice croaks from cigarettes, booze and one-night stands that earned him four divorce decrees. But this Bad boy can write songs and sing them like they're torn from his insides, even though Bad's headliner days are behind him and he has a habit of puking between songs. It's a juicy, career-crowning role, and Bridges — a master of subtle brilliance — plays the hell out of it. Not by showing off but by going bone-deep into a character who only thinks he's running on empty. Bridges just turned 60, and he's still the most underrated actor in America. Crazy Heart may finally win him the Oscar that's unfairly eluded him from his promising youth in The Last Picture Show to the glory days of The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, Starman, Fearless, The Door in the Floor, and his immortal Dude in The Big Lebowski, from the brothers Coen. I could go on. Let's just say that Crazy Heart offers the pleasure of watching a great actor at the peak of his form. How's the movie? Well, first-time director Scott Cooper, adapting Thomas Cobb's novel, is riding a well-worn trail, exemplified by 1983's Tender Mercies, which won an Oscar for Robert Duvall (excellent here as Bad's buddy). 
 
 Get more news, reviews and interviews from Peter Travers on The Travers Take 
 
 Has there ever been a movie about a country singer who isn't having a meltdown? The good news is that Cooper, an actor himself, shows a keen eye for authentic detail and an instinct for bringing out the best in the cast. Maggie Gyllenhaal is funny, touching and vital as Jean, the decades-younger single mom who might save Bad. The part is conventionally conceived, but Gyllenhaal plays it with a tough core of intelligence and feeling. Colin Farrell puts his Irish on hold and comes up aces as Tommy Sweet, the C&W; star who's now surpassed Bad, his mentor. Tommy's also a movie star, going the Kris Kristofferson route, while Bad is an outlaw combo of Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. It's Tommy who commissions Bad to write a new song for him. The result, "The Weary Kind," is a killer ballad that should class up Oscar's Best Song category. Props to Stephen Bruton and T Bone Burnett for original tunes that fit Bad and Bridges like scuffed boots that have paid their dues on the road. Even when you know what's coming, Crazy Heart haunts you like a classic country song. It's a mesmerizer. So is Bad Blake. This dude also abides.
– Jeff Bridges is already earning Oscar buzz for his turn as a hard-luck country singer in Crazy Heart. And the critics think it’s all deserved: Bad Blake’s a “juicy, career-crowning role, and Bridges plays the hell out of it,” writes Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. The songs should get Oscar nods too—they’re all new, but they “fit like scuffed boots that have paid their dues on the road.” The movie is charming and heartfelt, “a small thing gracefully done,” writes Kyle Smith in the New York Post. The screenplay is “so elegant and mature that it usually doesn’t seem to have been written at all.” Though the story is “a near-perfect cliché,” Bridges performance elevates Crazy Heart, says James Berdinelli of ReelViews. “He buries himself so thoroughly in the role that there's nothing of the actor remaining.” Actor-turned-director Scott Cooper “knows exactly when a scene’s over” and is “a smart custodian” of Bridges’ performance, says Nick Pinkerton in the Village Voice. “It's merely a well-done, adult American movie—that is to say, a rarity.”