Movie Review: Crazy Heart

The first thing you should know about Crazy Heart – a simple yet searing portrait of a tired and broken country music artist named Bad Blake – is it will bring to Jeff Bridges (Iron Man) his first-ever Academy Award win out of five nominations over the last 40 years.  You should also know if you live in Cache Valley and plan to see this movie, you’ll have to head south to Ogden, where it’s showing at the Megaplex 13 at The Junction.  With all the crap jam packed into the multiplexes lately, Crazy Heart is a burst of fresh, inspiring cinema, driven by the haunting old school twang of the film’s soundtrack and the emotionally resonant acting from Bridges.

Crazy Heart is directed by Scott Cooper and adapted from the 1987 novel of the same name, written by Thomas Cobb. The main character, Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a mélange of country and Western music bad boys, namely Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard. Blake’s past is best summed up in a line from one of his songs, “I used to be somebody, but now I am somebody else.” The person he is now is an alcoholic drifter, wandering from one small-town, low-paying gig to another, all the while splitting time between cheap motels and his dilapidated old car. It’s never fully explained, but part of Blake’s wandering seems to revolve around a former protégé, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), and the assumption he’s left Blake alone in the wake and dust of his newfound success.

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Ryan Bingham Sings The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart is in limited release so I’ve been forbidden to post my review yet, but I will say this – it is definitely one of the year’s best films. It’s like a kinder, gentler, blue-sky version of last year’s The Wrestler. One of the film’s strengths is the soundtrack, especially the song “The Weary Kind.” Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall and Collin Farrell all sing on the soundtrack, due out on January 19th, 2010.

Ryan Bingham co-wrote the song with T-Bone Burnett and the duo scored a Golden Globe nomination last week for Best Original Song. You probably recognized Burnett’s name, as he produced the soundtrack for Walk the Line and worked with the Coen brothers for 2002′s O Brother, Where Are Thou (he won an Album of the Year Grammy award for that soundtrack). I hadn’t heard of Bingham until Crazy Heart, but that’s because I don’t listen to alternative country music, or any country for that matter. Even still, Bingham’s got a melodic, raspy, whiskey-meets-velvet voice and I think you’ll enjoy the live performance of “The Weary Kind” below.