Crazy Heart is one of those rarer films in which you can easily separate performances from plot. In this case, a Best Actor from a less-than-best film.
Crazy Heart is a film about a washed-up country singer and the choices and changes he makes and the challenges he faces. It’s got great atmosphere, in dark and seedy little bars, and it really takes you to the edge of a life, the life of Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges, but it is, in the end, really a film made up of actors and not story.
Sadly, Crazy Heart doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s full of holes. The biggest hole, and it’s really a deal-breaker if you ask me, is our protagonist’s love interest. Without giving away a whole lot of the movie, it simply isn’t believable. I wasn’t convinced and neither was Maria, my wife, nor some of our close friends who also saw the movie too. There just isn’t enough back story, not even any character development, to make it a believable romance. When it’s important that you’re rooting for Blake, when you’re supposed to want him to succeed in love, you don’t. At least I didn’t. I didn’t buy it, because it wasn’t sold to me. And that’s a huge flaw in the film. It also lacked development between Blake and Tommy Sweet, a country musician who he helped tutor early in his career. We hear about Tommy in the opening seconds of the film as Blake complains about him to his agent on the telephone. Blake seems to loathe Tommy—or does he? Later on, without any real development, the two seem like bosom buddies. Again, the back story isn’t truly explained or explored.
But the plot is redeeming in that it doesn’t follow tried and true stereotypes. While I wouldn’t call it well-developed or complete like a film like Up in the Air, it did resist taking the easy way out, all the way to the end. Of course, assembling an on-screen romance out of nothing could be considered too easy, I think it was more lazy than anything else.
But really, Crazy Heart is a actor’s film and Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake takes the show. He acts, he sings and it’s all absolutely top-notch; in every sense of the word Bridges becomes Blake in this film. It’s true craftsmanship. Bridges, an all-around friendly family man, portrays an alcoholic, washed-up country musician on the down and out with uncanny ability. Surely Bridges isn’t really his character but whatever he’s channeling it is downright good.
Ultimately, you have to make your mind up about a film like Crazy Heart but I think you’ll agree. It’s an OK film with both some gaping plot holes and some wonderful acting, take it how you will.
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