Crazy Heart (2009): ”It’s funny how falling feels like flying… for a little while”

I’m not necessarily a country fan, at least not if we’re talking the “achy-breaky heart” variety. Then, on the other hand, there’s Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, and … yeah, those guys. Crazy Heart lives at that end of the street, just for a reference. Written and directed by Scott Cooper and based on the novel with the same name by Thomas Cobb, this is the story of a country music singer-songwriter called “Bad” Blake played brilliantly by Jeff Bridges. The whole narrative is actually pretty neatly summed up by the featured song “Fallin’ & Flyin’”. Well, that and “The Weary Kind”.

Before I even get into the turbulent and tragic life that is the downslide of a former country star, let me just take a minute to say that this is the most brilliant piece of casting you could possibly ask for. Bridges’ performance as a hard living, pudgy, constantly inebriated musician is absolutely stellar. This could so easily have been a melodrama, a sad and woeful tale of not wasting your talent with scoundrel ways, but there’s a wealth of humor and experience that Bridges brings to the performance that makes Bad Blake likeable, despite the fact that he is no doubt not a very pleasant person.

You will find the rest of my mad ramblings on the rambling existence of Bad Blake here:    Crazy Heart

Mule