Crazy Heart Review

I've been pretty mellow about the Academy's inclusion of The Blind Side in the nominations for Best Picture, but having seen this film I have a critical complaint about the Academy's judgement. Make no mistake, the performances are the main driving forces for this film. Jeff Bridges gives his greatest performance yet as the country singer Bad Blake, Maggie Gyllenhaal proves that she can add sexiness to a deep and layered role, and for once I didn't want Colin Farrell to die a horrible painful death. That's pretty high praise.

The movie's main focus is of course Jeff Bridges' character who hit his glory early on, and now is simply a lost soul. Not a lot of people know what a lost soul is, having been convinced by the media that it looks something like Christian Bale or Shia Labough. For those people, let me work out a statement that should clear it up quite a bit: Bad Blake is a lost soul. He's been chewed up, swallowed, and purged, and Jeff Bridges is the perfect man to show what that looks like. He's a heavy alchoholic, smoker, and not crazy overweight but fatter than he should be.

Early on in the film we see Blake's general lifestyle, and as soon as Gyllenhall's character Jean comes into the picture things change. They don't change that much but you know that she's of definite significance. You can abuse a ton of women and decide to not seek help, but there's always one person who's different; somebody you hurt so bad it makes you want to be better even though it will ultimately end in heartbreak. It's all very deep and beautiful. The problem is, didn't we already see this film? Wasn't it called The Wrestler?

As for the music in the film, it isn't the kind of painful suicidal country music played regularly on the radio. It is, as Jean puts it, pure country, with an actual meaning that speaks to the lonely person inside of us. The main song of the film, The Weary Kind, is destined to take home the award for original song, just as Jeff Bridges is meant to achieve Best Actor. He make George Clooney's "lost soul" from Up in the Air look like a wannabe. This is one of the only films in the Oscar race that has most of its categories locked down for a win. My Grade for Crazy Heart is B+.