Crazy Heart, dir. Scott Cooper (2009)

There’s nothing surprising or radical in Crazy Heart. Instead, the film serves as a brilliant reminder: it reminds us of Jeff Bridges’ greatness and urges us to recall how irritating and overindulgent a performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal can be. The film also reminds us about a particular kind of movie made in the United States during the 1970s—films with strong main characters and stronger performances. Crazy Heart exists very much in the tradition of those films.  Bridges quiet, genuinely soulful portrayal of how country singer Bad Blake gets his groove back carries the film into serious character study territory and keeps it from veering into overly sentimental, saccharine territory while also deftly covering up the film’s heavy reliance on music.

As Bad Blake, Bridges is a pleasure to watch: his hands flutter absentmindedly, his face, scarred by years of bowling alleys and dive bars, scowls at even the most inviting fans. Faced with such an overwhelming presence on screen, I can imagine Scott Cooper had no choice but to capture it: the often hand-held camera makes sure that Blake is always its focal point, seemingly freeing up space for Bridges’ Blake to be on screen, and for us to watch him. David Thompson once wrote that one of the great pleasures in cinema was just watching Humphrey Bogart walk across the frame: watching Bridges suggests much the same thing.

Aside from Bridges, the film is populated by colorful wide shots of the southwestern United States and a brief, pitch-perfect Colin Farrell as Tommy Sweet, Blake’s former protégé turned country music sensation. When Sweet sings the tunes Blake has written, he doesn’t so much croon as smile them, all pretty boy charm without any of the pain or skill Bad Blake possesses in spades. That, of course, is the point: Cooper demonstrates his dedication to an authentic depiction of the country music circuit, even not-so-good country music.  In this, Bridges, who refused to do the film unless T Bone Burnett was aboard to write the music, probably egged him on.

Yet the film’s attitude towards authentic music is problematic. Much of the film’s music is perfect in its familiarity, and the songs are frequently beautiful. Yet I’m reminded of Robert Altman’s Nashville, for which the director ordered the actors to write and perform their own songs, regardless of quality, allowing for an organic musical landscape to form within in the film. It’s a way in which Altman managed to make the music in a film about country music secondary to the film: he wouldn’t let high-profile songs dwarf his work.  Crazy Heart, on the other hand, strives for good songs–and it gets them, at the cost, perhaps, of a perfect film. The songs, maybe, are too good; the soundtrack, maybe, plays too much like one of your favorite mixtapes. Fallin’ & Flyin’, The Weary Kind, Hold on You–I love these songs already. Yet they reveal that the film rests its laurels on the quality of its music, instead of working to make the film itself unveil the persons behind the songs. Bridges’ performance, of course, hides this–but it’s a flaw nonetheless, lurking behind every frame. No matter how good the film is, no matter how sublime Jeff Bridges’ performance, I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like had Cooper considered the film before the music.