Analyzing Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart (USA)

Piercing, authentic and personal, Crazy Heart sticks with us long after the end credits roll. A trite story perhaps is quickly sobered (perhaps an intentional pun) by an all-encompassing Jeff Bridges performance. We care for “Bad Blake” as he is both pathetic and a believable talented has-been who seems to be his own worst enemy, an alcoholic who we cheer and continue to be disappointed with, as we feel he knows better. “Bad” Blake becomes a victim of his own celebrity, someone who feels an obligation to perform his songs until he dies out either through his own slovenly alcoholism or other self-destructiveness. Love is as fickle and spontaneous as creating a new ballad for “Bad Blake” until he meets his true love, journalist Jean Craddock. Even that becomes a struggle to overcome his many weakness. The songs sung by Jeff Bridges (including a duet with Colin Ferrell) are terrific, produced by the incomparable T-Bone Burnett, who’s career spans 40 years, and who also produced “Walk the Line” and “O Brother Where Art Thou.” Ryan Bingham’s Oscar-winning song “The Weary Kind,” much like Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed,” which he won for “Wonder Boys” encapsulates our protagonist’s weariness, despair and guilt-ridden conscience. Crazy Heart is a great, great music biopic of a fictitious character that carries real weight in its depth.