movie review: Crazy Heart

By now, everyone has heard of, if not seen, last year's acclaimed drama "Crazy Heart". Jeff Bridges's Oscar win for Best Actor was much anticipated and predicted. After seeing the difficult but very good film, I agree with the selection.

Jeff Bridges has the ability to inhabit each role he takes on with what looks like disarming ease; a natural and near effortless ability. I fully credit him as a hard-working actor, all the more so for being able to slip into his roles with such seeming effortlessness yet obvious dedication. Yet to each role an actor brings something of himself, something personal that can still be glimpsed through any transformation of makeup, accent, or character. With Bridges, I'd say it's his smile that almost seems to have a drawl to it: starting out slow, it stretches long out across his face and sparkles in his eyes with both good humor and a hint of assurance, as if to say that in the end he'll get his cake and eat it too, just wait and see.

The un-proclaimed assurance that glimmers in Bridge's eyes served him well in the role of Bad Blake: a man who doggedly keeps on hoping for applause long after the curtain has gone down. Bad is a worn out, washed up, alcoholic country singer/songwriter who stoically travels the country in a an old beat up suburban so he can perform at musty bowling allies and bars. His audience consists of a generation that knew him when he was something, when he was a legend. He takes the adoration of his few fans with barely a thank you, unless they offer him free alcohol or want to fall into bed with him in one of the delapdated hotel rooms he finds himself in at each stop along the way.

At odd moments while performing before some small-town gathering, you see a passion for his music that shaped him into a legend, even if that legend is now fading into obscurity. Yet more and more he simply lets himself disappear into a bottle, ruining himself faster with each resigned swig. Then along comes a woman who slowly starts to change things. This woman, Jean, is played by the pretty and capable Maggie Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal too, is an actress who always has a certain light in her eyes that sparks of determination no matter what. In "Crazy Heart", she plays a single mom who has seen a lot of men offer a lot of empty promises, and who is diligently raising her young son on her own steam. Jean is a small-town reporter who gets an interview with Bad thanks to her musician uncle. After the first interview, they both find reason for a second one, and things continue on from there.

Gyllenhaal brings many things to the role: she is believable both as a mother who is desperately loving and protective of her son, and as a woman who falls for a man against her will, knowing that he probably isn't the best for her. She radiates the screen in an understated way; she has a natural slouch about her shoulders, a gentle droop, while still exuding a strong will and intense passion. Gyllenhaal and Bridges seem like an unlikely couple, yet somehow they pull it off onscreen. They seem miss-matched in a clumsily sweet way, making an interesting and compelling pair of lovers.

Fortune seems to have found Bad Blake once more by way of a former protege who became a huge country music star and left his mentor in the dust years before. Along with his relationship with Jean, Bad seems to have hit the high road once more. But second chances often have to be earned, and Bad Blake's struggles with truly having a second shot at things - a second shot at life, essentially - are the core of the film.

When the credits rolled, "Crazy Heart" comes down to being a drama about redemption. Though sometimes uncomfortable (Bridges getting sick from alcohol, especially in one scene where more clothes would have been nice), the emotions, struggles, and outcomes depicted in the movie are raw and thought-provoking. As with any good drama, I invested in the characters, and in the end, wanted just a little something more.