Country music movie lacks soul
One of the best movies last year was about a washed up,
alcoholic country singer who tries to put a life back together
before it’s too late. The movie
”
Crazy Heart
”
starred Jeff Bridges in a role that won him an Oscar for best
actor and it also took home the award for best original song.
Writer/director Shana Feste takes the skeleton of that story and
turns it into a movie about a big star who is trying to come back
from a recent breakdown. But where
”
Crazy Heart
”
was full of heartbreaking moments that really drew the viewer
in,
”
Country Strong
”
starts out on shaky ground from the beginning and only gets
worse as it goes along.
Country music movie lacks soul
One of the best movies last year was about a washed up, alcoholic country singer who tries to put a life back together before it’s too late. The movie “Crazy Heart” starred Jeff Bridges in a role that won him an Oscar for best actor and it also took home the award for best original song.
Writer/director Shana Feste takes the skeleton of that story and turns it into a movie about a big star who is trying to come back from a recent breakdown. But where “Crazy Heart” was full of heartbreaking moments that really drew the viewer in, “Country Strong” starts out on shaky ground from the beginning and only gets worse as it goes along.
Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a major singer who has hit some roadblocks in recent months (think Britney Spears, but for the country set.) She has been in rehab for a few months, but her husband James (Tim McGraw) gets permission from her doctor to pull her out a month early so that she can stage a comeback tour.
The only person who seems to have a problem with Kelly leaving rehab early is Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund), a young orderly at the rehab hospital who just happens to be a country songwriter who plays at local small-time bars.
Kelly wants Beau to be her opening act and tells her husband he is her sponsor. But James has his eye on a young up-and-coming singer named Chiles Stanton (Leighton Meester.) Chiles is a singer in the style of early Taylor Swift, and her music is a lot of pop and fluff.
Beau and Chiles just happen to be singing on the same night at a Nashville bar when James shows up to see Chiles perform. She chokes and Beau gets on stage to help her out with a rendition of a Garth Brooks classic. Soon enough the two are invited on tour, though Beau is reluctant to go.
The timeline for the rest of the movie is fuzzy, though the trio have only three dates to perform in Texas, so it seems as though the time passed should only be a week or so.
The dialogue in the movies is rough and stilted. None of it feels very conversational, even when the characters are just having a casual conversation. It is especially bad in the moments when Feste tries to create some drama. Most of the dialogue is awkward, and not on purpose. Feste doesn’t ever have her main characters directly address any of the issues they are facing. Viewers only learn that Kelly was 5 ½ months pregnant when she fell of a stage during a Dallas concert with a high blood alcohol level. Since there is no baby in sight – though Kelly has taken to carry around a little baby bird in a wooden box – it can only be assumed that the baby did not survive the fall.
James invites Beau on the tour, in hopes that he will help keep Kelly sober enough to get through the three-day tour. But no sooner is Kelly getting ready for her first appearance than she is in her dressing room with a bottle of vodka. Even with Beau, as well as plenty of other people on the tour, no one seems able to keep a close eye on Kelly. She seems to slip away without notice every time she wants a drink.
If Kelly’s alcoholism wasn’t enough to cause drama, Feste also wrote in a love triangle of sorts. Beau is not really Kelly’s sponsor – they are lovers – and she makes him promise not to sleep with anyone else on the short tour. In the meantime James flirts with Chiles, though he never makes a move on her. Instead, Beau suddenly becomes a moral man and decides that maybe sleeping with an alcoholic woman behind her husband’s back isn’t going to help keep her sober. No sooner does Beau scorn Kelly’s advances than he finds himself making eyes at Chiles.
Kelly says love and fame can’t live in the same place – on more than one occasion – but nothing in the movie feels much like love.
The only redeeming thing about the movie is the music in it, but it would be better to skip the film and just listen to the soundtrack.
Melissa Flores can be reached at [email protected]. She writes a blog at
