In many ways the last ten years or so of Jeff Bridges career have been building to Crazy Heart. After starring roles as typical leading man hero types in movies like White Squall and Blown Away in the mid nineties, Bridges capped off that decade by playing ‘The Dude’ in the Cohen brothers’ sprawling, stoner mystery story The Big Lebowski and somewhere along the way created a modern icon. Bridges’ layed back, disheveled, goat bearded performance has achieved cult status and stands in stark contrast to the fresh faced, red blooded, man and his dream characters he was mostly playing up to that point. Since his grungy turn in Lebowski Bridges has largely forgone his leading man attempts to take more aging actor in Hollywood type roles, those of mentors, burnouts, villains; roles requiring world weary sighs instead of chest thumping braggadocio, more sad faced emoting than stunt work. Bridges has perfected the art of moving around his mouth like a cow chewing cud and having it read as burning emotion. This new approach has allowed him to indulge in some interesting bits of experimentation and carved for him a niche in Hollywood that has helped him stand out among other actors. Twice in 2009 he has called back to his role as The Dude. Firstly he revisited the role as a long haired, counter culture guru in ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’ and played it for laughs, but here he takes that archetype and skews it in a darker direction. In Crazy Heart Bridges plays a washed up, alcoholic country singer by the name of Bad Blake. Blake is the Dude if you replaced his White Russians with straight whiskey and his weed with, well, more straight whiskey. If instead of a worry free life of bowling and burgers The Dude was subjected to a lifetime of grueling road schedules, failed marriages, and alcohol abuse you can imagine the point Bridge’s new character Blake is at when Crazy Heart opens.
The film is helmed by first time director Scott Cooper and the effort is such that Cooper’s name is sure to be closely followed by industry insiders from here on out. Despite his inexperience at being the big boss on a feature film, Cooper, who also adapted the original novel for the screen, shows maturity by understanding that this is primarily an actor’s piece and presenting things accordingly. The work with the camera is capable, but unobtrusive. The production design is authentic, not flashy. The heart of the film is the lead performance of Bridges and everything that Cooper surrounds the performance with exists to give Bridges a platform to do his work. Nothing is showy, no style is flaunted; this is down home filmmaking.
The first act of the movie moves, both spatially and temporally. We’re given little glimpses into the character of Blake as he moves from place to place, playing thrown together nostalgia shows in dive bars and broken down bowling alleys throughout the southwestern United States. Blake’s world is one of contrasts, alcohol binges in dingey booze joints at night, and commutes through wide open, sun soaked plains during the day. Both settings photograph beautifully, and work to set the tone of the film. This is Bad Blake’s world, and for the next two hours or so you are going to be a part of it. With every interaction Bridges gives another little peak into his character, every change of scenery gives him something else to bounce off of and react to. This early feeling of discovery keeps the setup interesting and tautly paced.
Blake appears on surface to be a relic. He plays a brand of country music that no longer appeals to the masses. He seems to eat steak, biscuits, and whiskey for every meal. All of the pieces are in place for the character to appear as a grumpy, broken down, old curmudgeon; but thankfully things are kept much more interesting than that. Little touches are sprinkled through to keep Blake likeable enough that we root for him instead of loathe him. He remembers to pay homage to someone who does him a favor, he stops to appreciate the skill of a journeyman piano player. At one point in the film Blake remarks, “the whole world was tamed by men who ate biscuits”. This quote serves not just as an amusing aside, but also as a defense of his state of being. Perhaps, we think, there is some life left in this man after all. Maybe Blake isn’t an obsolete model of grumbling and abuse that reminds us of the worst of our grandfathers, but instead a lost archetype of the sort of real man’s man that used to exist; the kind of cowboy adventurers who made history great. It is just this sort of uncertainty that lures in the character of Jean Craddock played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She plays a small town newspaper reporter looking to get an interview with Blake for the local paper. During the interview, Blake, the loveable lech, attempts to lay on the best of his leering old man charms, and despite her best instincts, Craddock decides to give him a chance.
It is here in the second act of the Story where Blake gets to developing a relationship with Craddock and her young son that the story loses a bit of momentum. The forward motion of the road story we were following is a bit halted for the getting to know you procedures. Craddock begins to fall for Blake, but has reservations about his alcoholism and the affect it might have on her son. Blake is similarly infatuated with Craddock, and bonds quickly with her son, but questions begin to arise as to whether or not he can keep his addictions under control. The script and the principle actors play things interestingly enough to keep me generally engaged throughout these segments, the conflicts injecting enough tension in the story to keep me moving along, but I missed the economy of the film’s beginning. Craddock’s tear between her fascination with Blake and her mistrust of his nature is a big part of the film and Gyllenhaal plays things wonderfully, never once making her character seem judgmental or overly dramatic when she rains on Blake’s parade. A lesser actress could have let the character degenerate into a bipolar basket case. Still, despite this intrigue, somewhere in the second act I lost a sense of where the story was going, and then in the third things seemed to wrap up a little too quickly. Blake’s development of character that the middle portion of the film was leading up to all but happens off screen, and I can’t help but think that it feels like a little of a cop out. If I were going to do a rewrite of the script I would have trimmed up the courtship period of Blake and Craddock’s relationship a bit and focused more on Blake’s struggle to become a better man that took up the last portion of the film. Really these complaints are minor though, as things are kept generally engaging and meaningful throughout.
Bridges and Gyllenhaal are helped along by a couple of strong supporting roles as well. Colin Farrell was understated but strong as Tommy Sweet, former Blake protégé and current country music megastar. It is with a small sense of irony that Farrell plays a music star in such a straight subdued manner, himself being known as a brash, tabloid grabbing celebrity freak show. This performance feels a bit rehabilitative after Farrell’s quick crash and burn onto the Hollywood scene. I think a quiet, somewhat unnoticed turn in a small scale art film like this might be just what he needed to get his image back on track. It should also be noted that his accent work is completely believable, all traces of his Irish brogue erased and replaced with a present but not distracting southern drawl. Robert Duvall also shows up as Blake’s back home bartender and fishing buddy Wayne. The role is small and a bit underwritten, but Duvall is able to make it more than it should be by injecting the character with a sort of manic energy and glowing personality every time he’s on screen. The music of the film plays an important supporting role as well, as it infuses every scene with authentic country charm. T-Bone Burnett, the famed musical collaborator on the Cohen brothers’ wildly successful O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, puts together another extraordinary soundtrack for this film filled both with select tracks from legendary artists like Waylon Jennings and Townes Van Zandt and also original pieces performed by the film’s actors. The songs are catchy, well performed, and worth the price of admission alone.
Crazy Heart exists as a subtle, real bit of filmmaking that isn’t seen enough in American pictures. The characters develop slowly and naturally throughout. A bit of defensiveness when Blake is questioned about children early on foreshadows the daddy issues that pop up later in the narrative. The audience is left to fill in the blanks and follow along themselves instead of being spoon fed and led along by the sort of hackneyed, slow motion flashback sequences that are so often used as shortcuts to story telling in many modern films. The authenticity of the film’s characters and setting are present in the leathery, makeup smeared face of the sea hag groupie that sleeps in the bed of Blake’s cheap, outdated motel room, and in the wood paneling on the walls. The filmmakers don’t fall back on filming things in beautiful but out of place settings or using young, pretty actors just because they’re easier for mainstream audiences to digest. Cooper creates a real, lived in southwest that we’ve all seen, and Bridges a living breathing character that we can believe in. Though, once again, I felt some small pacing issues cropped up due to the sprawling second act and the truncated third, I would still consider this film a rousing success. The meat and potatoes of the film is watching Bridges work, and in that it delivers in spades. Bridges has found his signature role. From his acting, to his musical performances, to his gut hanging out of his unbuttoned western style shirt, Bad Blake is bound to become the icon of what Bridges was able to accomplish as an actor and I would be very surprised if he didn’t collect at least a few high profile awards due to his efforts. Even if I still kind of prefer The Dude.
