Directed by: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Rating: R

Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhall star in Crazy Heart. (Courtesy photo)

Anyone who has seen Crazy Heart will agree: replace Hugh Grant with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Julia Roberts with Jeff Bridges and it’s exactly the same movie as Notting Hill. Okay, not really. Crazy Heart is the exploration of the real person behind the celebrity, but that’s about where the similarities end. Jeff Bridges is too young to play his crowning role, but this one will probably stand for some time—and most assuredly win him his long-overdue first Oscar. Bridges gives such a full-bodied performance, in every sense of the word, that he lifts a sound, but familiar story into something more poetic. He doesn’t just create an amalgam of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and all the other hard-living men of country music, but he drunkenly stumbles his way through dramatic clichés and makes them play like real life.

Bad Blake is 57, and is an alcoholic, physical mess stuck touring small southwestern towns. He barely gets by playing his old library of songs, while his once-bright star gradually fades and protégés like Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) play to sold out stadiums. In Santa Fe, Bad agrees to an interview with Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and the two instantly connect. Bad even forgoes one of his standard after-show quickies just for the chance to keep talking to her. Jean is hesitant to get involved with the broken-down singer, but she can’t resist his whiskey-soaked charm. Bad has the ability to turn his career around, but it would mean writing new songs, and writing them for Tommy. That’s something he just can’t bring himself to do.

First-time writer/director Scott Cooper plays every old tune as if he’s hearing it for the first time, which makes the movie feel overly simple and wonderfully gritty at the same time. He gives the film a languid pace that seems to match Blake’s creaky shuffle. None of this may be new, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t honest. It’s a solid debut, perhaps most impressive for the performances he coaxes from his cast. Bridges is no surprise, but Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight) is less self-conscious than usual and Farrell (In Bruges) is surprisingly low-key. He’s a bit ticky, but makes up for it with a quiet sweetness. Farrell and Bridges do their own singing and do a very nice job. Only Robert Duvall overdoes it as Blake’s friend and conscience, Wayne. Duvall gets awfully frisky in his little role, but it amounts to little more than an amusing distraction. Plenty of actors could have played Bad Blake—it’s a plum role. But it’s hard to imagine anyone doing better than Jeff Bridges. Scott Cooper wrote the part for Bridges and determined he simply wouldn’t make the film without him. It’s not my favorite Bridges performance—those would be The Big Lebowski and The Contender—but it’s certainly a fine choice to reward Bridges’ marvelously varied body of work. There’s a lack of complexity to Crazy Heart (witness the quickest, easiest detox in film history). It’s reminiscent of last year’s The Wrestler, without the underlying autobiographical intensity. But where Cooper’s script may fail to dig deep, his camera finds powerful character depth on Bridges’ face. We get an unflinching close-up view of the raggedy man, his soft belly often hanging out, driving with his pants undone (my favorite character detail). Yet we don’t for a second question the much younger Jean’s attraction to him. Heck, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like the man.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard readers for many years.