Well, we saw "Crazy Heart" the other afternoon in Sierra Vista and Carole and I both loved it, if that's the right word. It was a very painful movie for me; I know a little about a life that can drift out of control, running on empty, even as it might seem to some as if things are all right.
Jeff Bridges played the part of an aging, alcoholic country and western singer who had become a legend and was fading from view, playing in bowling alleys.
How the booze and cigarettes loomed as the heart of the story was done brilliantly, to my mind. I laughed out loud at the way Bridges held his endless cigarettes. The director wanted us to see first what is was to be "past it" as a performer and only after a while to see two of the big reasons why being past it couldn't be faced and accepted.
Maggie Gyllenhaal was terrific too as was Colin Farrell. Farrell as today's version of a country western singer was a big part of why the movie worked; he wasn't a cliche. How in the hell does he move from "In Bruges" to "Crazy Heart," characters that come from two different universes?
The ending was perfect and a little sad, a perfect illustration of acceptance.
And of course the songs, and Bridges and Farrell singing their own songs, are central to the movie's success.
"Hats off, gentlemen."
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