When you make a movie about a washed-up county singer searching for redemption, you run the risk of being compared to the 1983 film that was nominated for five Academy Awards and won two. While Crazy Heart doesn’t come close to equaling the stark, beautiful simplicity of Tender Mercies, it has its own virtues, particularly strong performances by Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Bridges plays Bad Blake; a hard-drinking, chain-smoking has-been country singer, still performing in dives as he approaches 60. While playing two nights in Santa Fe, he agrees to do an interview with Jean Craddock (Gyllenhaal), a reporter for the local paper. Initially, she approaches the assignment with cautious admiration. However, her loneliness and Blake’s charms eventually prevail and before he leaves town, a May-December love affair has blossomed. The relationship is made more poignant by the fact that Jean has a young son, Buddy, who reminds Bad of the son he abandoned years earlier.
Blake’s next stop is Phoenix where he’s the opening act for his former guitar player and protégé, Tommy Sweet, played by Collin Farrell. Tommy has become a huge success and while their relationship is fairly amicable, the divergent trajectories their careers have taken since they split makes things awkward. Tommy, through a sense of indebtedness to his aging mentor, makes the greater effort to smooth things over. He asks Bad to write some songs for him.
For the remainder of the movie, Blake pursues Jean’s affections and eventually the changes necessary for a guy like him to be with some one like her. The highs and lows of this courtship provide the inspiration he needs to write the songs for Tommy.
Crazy Heart doesn’t try so much to match Tender Mercies as pay homage to it. This becomes clear with a late cameo by Robert Duvall, the protagonist of the 1983 award winner. Here he plays Bad’s confidant, Wayne and is, along with Bridges, one of the producers of this film.
With slow pacing and no action to speak of, the movie focuses on the acting. Bridges gives a career performance as the lovable scoundrel, who’s squandered so much to a reckless lifestyle. Gyllenhaal more then holds her own as a vulnerable, single mom determined not to repeat past mistakes. Both Bridges and Farrell deserve accolades for doing their own singing.
Ultimately, it’s Bridges performance that defines this picture. He does the utmost with a solid but unspectacular script. A similar role brought Duvall an Oscar in ’83. Bridge’s portrayal of Bad Blake just might bring him the same reward this March.
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