Flawed Script, Perfect Performance

If judged by its plot alone, “Crazy Heart� is just another tale of the degradation and redemption of an artist: a once-successful musician, now a sodden alcoholic reduced to playing in roadside bowling alleys and cadging bottles of whiskey from fans, falls in love with a good woman and, well, you know the rest.

This story usually comes in two flavors: Star is redeemed by said good woman, or, star dies alone in a hotel room.

   These films rise or fall on the strength of the star and the music. And in both those areas, “Crazy Heartâ€� rises to very great heights, indeed.

   Writer/director Scott Cooper works strenuously to avoid the usual clichés, and partially succeeds. We never learn the back story of “Badâ€� Blake (Jeff Bridges) and what drove him to drink himself into oblivion, nor why Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is almost as self-destructive, falling in love with someone who will obviously disappoint her, or worse.  

   The plot meanders slowly. Very little actually happens. But the character of Bad Blake, as portrayed almost gently by Bridges, is utterly compelling. Once a successful singer-songwriter, Blake has long since been eclipsed by his younger protégé and partner, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell.) Always drunk, sodden with sweat and prone to the heaves, Bad manages to pull it together, just, each night on stage, where his few remaining fans  — most a little the worse for wear, but unfailingly loyal — sing along as he plays with whatever local band shows up to back him. Bridges is so physically immersed in Blake’s degradation, the audience can almost smell him.

   Jean, a young single mother trying to restart life and career as a journalist, interviews Bad for her local paper.  Many-times married and used to having female fans climb into his bed at every gig, Bad responds to her interest, submitting to her questions patiently, despite her insistence on asking about the one subject he won’t discuss, his relationship with Tommy Sweet. Gyllenhaal plays Jean simply, with a quiet radiance, and slowly they fall for each other.

   When Sweet himself, now a superstar, invites Bad to open for him in an outdoor stadium, Bad resists at first, but relents because he needs the money. Driving his old Suburban into the parking lot past Sweet’s caravan of shiny tour buses, he refuses to be bullied by the roadies and technicians and pulls off a good set.

   Sweet is deferential to the point of obsequity, and we soon see why: He needs new songs for his next album and only Bad can write them.   Bad refuses, pointing out that he hasn’t written a song in years, and retreats to boozy solitude, kept company only by a lonely barkeep, played, in a neat bit of casting, by Robert Duvall, who played a role similar to Blake 30 years ago in “Tender Mercies.â€�  Duvall has one of the loveliest moments in the film, singing a capella a scrap of a song as he and Blake drift across a quiet lake in a small boat. If it’s meant to symbolize a life raft, Duvall is just right as the one person Blake can hold on to as he hits bottom and falls right through.

   The brilliant songs, by T. Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham and others, narrate Blake’s trajectory with lyrics like “funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’ for a little while,â€� and Bridges croons them with a weary, rough-edged baritone.

   The last quarter of the movie finally succumbs to some of the traps of the genre, and the brisk ending rings false after such a slow winding ride. But Bridges deserves every bit of the hype he’s been getting for this absolutely perfect performance.

    “Crazy Heartâ€�  is playing at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, NY, and is coming soon to The Moviehouse in Millerton and The Triplex in Great Barrington, MA. It is rated R for language and sexuality.