Crazy Heart

***1/2 Stars

Crazy Heart is a story we’ve all seen before, but told and acted in a way that is truly original. Jeff Bridges’ portrayal of Bad Blake, a country music star whose hit rock bottom, is a brilliant one, a performance of wonderful integrity and startling emotion. He deserves every award he has already been given, and I’ll be very surprised if someone else other than him takes home the Best Actor come Oscar night. Along side Bridges is a great a performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who surprisingly received a well-deserved supporting actress nomination for her role as Blake’s lover.

The story begins with Bad Blake, who at one point was a high-flying country star with fame and fortune, booze and women. The movie opens with him playing at a bowling alley, so obviously he’s hit some sort of road bump in his career (or perhaps a road block). He has become to care more about the whiskey he drinks than the tunes he plays. When he meets a young journalist named Jean (Gyllenhaal) at one of his shows, the two begin to spark an interest in each other. After Jean asks him what he wants to talk about, he replies, “I want to talk about how bad you make this room look.” Right then and there we know exactly what this character wants, and how open he is in getting it. After they hook-up for the first time, Bad Blake hits the road again to continue his tour, stopping every now and then to see the first women in a long time that’s made him, well, happy.

Colin Ferrell and Robert Duvall offer their fine talents in supporting roles that add a level of maturity and experience to Bridges’ already astounding screen presence. Duvall plays a bartender and Blake’s old friend, and Ferrell plays Tommy, Bad’s old apprentice who is a now a big country star. Tommy hasn’t forgotten what Bad has done for him, and offers him a chance to kick-start his career again. But the effects of alcoholism have already consumed Bad Blake, and it takes a lot of physical and mental pain before he can become himself again.

The movie takes a particular topic that movies seem to overdo and puts in a realistic, contemporary setting with a real character, making it a very down-to-earth story about a man dealing with such a such addiction to alcohol that he literally sleeps with a bottle wrapped up in his cozy arms on more than one occasion. There are no beatings around the bush here. Alcohol is as strong of theme in this film as Bad Blake’s music, if not stronger.

Bridges is one of America’s finest actors, and he proves this once again in Crazy Heart, a brilliantly acted and tragically real tale of one man trying to find a small measure of peace on the road to redemption.