Crazy Heart

The film that won Jeff Bridges his Oscar – and rightly so – is an honest and touching story about love, addiction, heartbreak and redemption.

Bad Blake (Bridges) is a washed up, alcoholic country singer, reduced to playing his old hits in bars and bowling alleys, and living from one pay-cheque to the next. When he meets Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist and single-mum, the attraction of being part of a family is enough to persuade him to turn his life around – but how long before he falls off the wagon and destroys the new life he has built?

It is fair to say that Bridges is better than the film itself, and it is certainly the strength of his heartbreaking performance that carries it. He gives his country star a gruff authenticity both on and off the stage, and subtly conveys a deep loneliness and sadness beneath his character’s charismatic exterior. Gyllenhaal is also brilliant as a woman who can’t help being taken in by Bad, despite knowing the threat that he poses to her carefully controlled life.

Music is obviously an important part of Crazy Heart and, indeed, the soundtrack is fantastic: songs such as “I Don’t Know” and “Fallin’ and Flyin’” – written especially for the film by T Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton – sound like they could have been the hit records we are told Bad Blake once had, and this definitely adds to the realism. A sub-plot in which Bad supports his former protégé, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), in concert allows director Scott Cooper to showcase these original songs, and Bridges and Farrell both prove they are more than capable of holding a tune – not to mention affecting a realistic country twang. “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” – a poignant and beautiful ballad written by rising country star Ryan Bingham – won an Oscar for Best Song at this years’ Academy Awards.

Overall, Crazy Heart is heartbreaking, heart-warming, and ultimately uplifting, reminding us that everyone deserves a second chance. Its great success is that it creates a character we are happy to follow on his long road to redemption – though it is Bridges himself who makes the journey worthwhile.

CMD