February 10, 2010: Crazy Heart
Jeff Bridges is the main attraction in Crazy Heart, and he sells it beautifully. Hollywood loves it when an aging actor or actress finds a film that allows them to channel their long experience into a tour de force performance, often leading to the recognition which has eluded them for decades. Bridges has been a journeyman character actor, frequent second banana and sometime leading man for nearly 40 years, has been personally well-liked since his very early days as he grew up in the business with his father on TV, and has made courageous choices with his film roles right from the start. After four previous Oscar nominations through the years, he’s up for Best Actor for Crazy Heart, and it will be a well-deserved win.
The thing about these late-career defining performances is that sometimes they are placed in brilliant films, but more often they are the only shining light in otherwise unremarkable efforts. With Crazy Heart it isn’t immediately obvious which one it is, and I suppose that’s a good thing. While there are some poignant aspects to the story, there’s also plenty that’s predictable. Some solid performances don’t always make up for the absence of any great revelations. The obvious passion for the story from everyone involved, coupled with some stunning visuals, push this one towards a strong recommendation. Crazy Heart is a rewarding experience.
Bridges plays Bad Blake, a 60-ish country musician whose alcoholism and other bad choices have left him with not much other than his old truck and his old house. His real given name remains exiled, as if to deliberately remind himself that long ago during times of success and still today, his alternate persona wasn’t the answer to life’s problems. He tours around, playing shows at dusty little bars in dusty little towns, faithfully rolling out his classic tunes for the faithful fans scattered around these big empty southern states. His former protégé, a much younger musician played by Colin Farrell, sold out to the “new country” commercialism in Nashville and is now a megastar, but he still remembers his roots and who taught him everything he knows. Bad Blake is down and out, scraping along with next to nothing, but he can still write songs like nobody else, and that’s what gives him the potential to pull himself back up.
Things pick up quickly when a thirtysomething single-mom music journalist, played by the love-her-or-hate-her Maggie Gyllenhaal, takes a shine to Blake and gives him a new reason to go on. Coupled with the bitter pill of a gig opening for his former student Farrell, Blake is going to quickly need to figure out how and whether he’s living his life. This is where the film edges towards formula and away from greater possibilities. Maybe I’m too demanding, and human nature really does lead most of us to inevitable conclusions and actions.
Touching performances from Gyllenhaal, Farrell and Robert Duvall as one of Blake’s oldest friends raise Crazy Heart several notches above what it could have been, and Bridges ties it all together as the drunken anti-hero. Even half-sloshed, he still exudes the charm and confidence that led to his earlier success. The pain of a long string of bad decisions haunts him every day, but he takes it like a man and deals with it by dialing down his expectations of himself and what he deserves. His 30-year-old run-down Chevy Silverado truck is evocative of Blake himself – old but rugged and still running.
It would be a crime if I neglected to mention the amazing widescreen cinematography here. It truly captures the mythic scenery and landscapes of the US southwest, as Blake drives from one small town to another in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before getting back to his home in big-city Texas. Original music written for the film by longtime country/folk artist and music producer T-Bone Burnett is also a serious plus, and Bridges is a singer and guitarist himself, so performing the songs is no problem for him.
I’m not going to tell you anything different than you’ve already heard. Crazy Heart is an OK but unremarkable film, which houses a magnetic performance by the long-underappreciated Jeff Bridges. I guarantee he’ll thank his Dad, and maybe shed a tear or two, when he accepts his well-deserved Oscar.
Jeff Bridges finally gets his due.
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