Saturday Night At The Movies

Wasted days and wasted nights

By Dennis Hartley

So…Kris Kristofferson wasn’t available, then?

Ev’rything’s agin’ me and it’s got me down
If I jumped in the river I would prob’ly drown
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive.
-Hank Williams

I think I may have finally stumped Google. I cannot for the life of me locate the name of the artist who wrote and/or sang my favorite country song of all time. Let me qualify that. That would be my favorite country song title, which is “I’m Gonna Build Me a Bar in the Back of My Car and Drive Myself to Drink” (I believe it came out circa ‘78, if that helps jog anyone’s memory). At any rate, after watching Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart, I can visualize the film’s protagonist, “Bad” Blake (Jeff Bridges) as that songwriter. This guy IS a country song-with a pocketful of whiskey and a lifetime full of heartache and regret.

Look in the dictionary under “has been country musicians” and you’ll see an 8×10 of Bad Blake. Take a little whiff of the accompanying “scratch’n’sniff” card, and you’ll catch a pungent mélange of stale beer, cigarettes, musty nightclubs and cheap motel rooms. Tooling around the Southwest in his antiquated, “lucky” Suburban, Blake’s life is a never-ending series of shithole one-nighters (in the film’s opening scene, his name gets second billing to a league tournament on a bowling alley sign, which reminded me of the visual gag from This Is Spinal Tap with the amusement park marquee touting “Puppet show…and Spinal Tap”). Keeping his road expenses to a minimum, he tours solo, using pickup bands to back him at each location. Eschewing rehearsals and sound checks, he spends his off hours brushing up on his ornithology (e.g. Wild Turkey, Old Crow and Eagle Rare). Somehow, he still manages to get through his performances. Oh, on occasion, the band has to vamp while he slips out to vomit in the alley-but that’s showbiz.

His love life is in similar disarray; it is a trail of broken hearts, one-night stands with groupies, an adult son whom he has not seen since infancy and a handful of exes (who may, or may not, live in Texas). His romance with the bottle is his longest-standing relationship. Enter a small-town newspaper reporter named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a divorcee with a 4-year old son. Jean is the daughter of a piano player who is backing Bad at one of his gigs; he asks Bad to grant her an interview as a favor. Preferring his fans to remember him as he was “back in the day”, the initially reluctant interviewee becomes much more enthusiastic about the prospect once he meets the winsome young woman. Sparks fly, and the heat, as they say, is on. In fact, Bad starts feeling much more enthusiastic about life in general (funny about love); he surprises his long-suffering booking agent by agreeing to bury the hatchet with Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), a former protégé who is now a country superstar, and open a stadium show for him. Things are suddenly looking up. But as anyone who has seen more than one film featuring an alcoholic protagonist can tell you, it’s about this point in the narrative where you start waiting for the other shoe to drop (“So how’s he going to fuck it up? Pass the popcorn”).

So, is this just another “narcissistic, self-destructive, substance-abusing musician who has hit rock-bottom but just needs the love of a good woman to put him on the road to redemption” story? Well, yes. And no. Writer-director Cooper’s script (adapted from the original novel by Thomas Cobb) does travel down some dusty and well-worn country roads, but thankfully avoids some of the usual clichés before it takes us home. For instance, there are no barroom brawls, and (wait for it) nary even one scene that takes place in a trailer park (THAT was refreshing). Yes, we’ve most definitely seen this story before, but we don’t always get to see it delivered by such a great cast; and that’s the main reason to see this film. There’s a lot of Oscar buzz about Bridges’ performance. Interestingly, as good as he is here, on a sliding scale I wouldn’t necessarily consider it the best thing he has ever done. But if anyone deserves a statuette for a consistently fine body of work, it would be our boy Jeff; I think he’s a national treasure. He’s got a good shot; if history has taught us anything, it’s that Oscar loves drunks (and nuns, according to Kate Winslet in a classic episode of Extras). Robert Duvall has a small but memorable role as Bad’s long-time friend (and bartender, which I guess is one and the same in his case). Duvall and Bridges are a joy to watch in all their scenes together. Gyllenhaal is excellent as always, although I thought her part felt a little underwritten. Bridges does his own singing, and he isn’t half-bad; on a couple of the stripped-down ballads he sounds like he could give Leonard Cohen a run for his money in baritone-rich world-weariness. This is a small and simple film, but it has a pretty big heart…like a good country song.

Sturm and twang: Tender Mercies, Songwriter, Honeysuckle Rose, Payday, Bound for Glory, Sweet Dreams, Walk the Line, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Nashville, Your Cheatin’ Heart, Honkytonk Man, Crazy, Rhinestone, Pure Country.

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