Jeff Bridges is so wholeheartedly sympathetic, so real as a washed-up alcoholic country singer, that it seems a shame to put such dramatic energy  into a rather…I won’t say disappointing story — it was watchable, you could sit back and sink into the film, but when it’s over, you realize that nothing but Bridges’ stellar performance felt real.

Bridges is a nice guy. You like him. He’s a familiar case of self-destruct: four ex-wives, a son he hasn’t seen in umpteen years but you never really know why. Where is the sense of his history? He’s broke, no new songs, blood stream is pure alcohol, he looks as if he hasn’t had a bath in months, and when he lies shirt-off, you see his flabby, aging body. Sprawled on the floor of a toilet of some little bar where he’s been booked for a few dollars, he is that unwashed, unshaven guy.  Okay, in the genre of washed-up-country-singer-ready-for-comeback film, it’s a good start. He plays bowling alleys to a few loyal fans. Then he meets the beautiful, young and fresh-faced local reporter who wants to interview him, and they are both attracted. He’s been sleeping with old saggy-breasted matrons to get through the night. No wonder he’s taken by this sweet, beautiful young thing, but why would she be attracted to him? He’s had four wives; she’s been taken by one rotten guy and left with this beautiful little four-year-old. Yes, the old drunk is kind and loving with her child…but why now?  Is it simply failure that made him suddenly sympathetic to the little boy when he hasn’t tried to see his own son in so many years? And how on Earth could she get into bed with him without making him take a shower? At least make him put on clean underwear.

Odd to find a film this easy to watch and so inherently likable, but in the end, what have you got? Because Robert Duvall plays a nothing role, you can’t help but compare Crazy Heart to Tender Mercies, which was so touching, so moving in its quiet way that you leave it with a sense of having lived a pure moment of true history. Duvall’s country singer is down-and-out, drunk in a cheap motel, but given a job by a simple girl making it on her own, her young husband dead in the war. Duvall’s return to life is so utterly believable…but perhaps not fair to compare it, except that it had a story with tension and passion, and Crazy Heart did not. 

Bridges gives a wonderful performance, and Maggie Gyllenhaal beautifully plays the part of a woman attracted by this battered man, but she adores her four-year-old. So why…why would she leave her vulnerable little kid in the hands of a proven drunk? I got nervous when Bridges and the boy spent some hours at the playground, waiting for disaster. It doesn’t come. Just as I waited when the down-and-out singer has to play openers for the new country star (Colin Farrell) he actually trained. No tension. The new star is totally sympathetic, in fact opens a new beginning for his almost burned-out friend.  When finally the tension comes, when the little boy wanders off in the mall, he’s quickly found. About time, lady, you learned that you don’t leave four-year-old with a drunk. Yes, you asked him not to drink in front of the boy. Why on Earth should you believe him?

But Bridges is so true to his role, Gyllenhall is softly kind and accepting, Colin Farrell is so generous an old friend, it seems cold to complain that there is actually not much of a story, and what there is is not believable.

Worth a watch to see Bridges. I had also to compare him with Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah, where Jones plays so low-key a role of a father who finds his soldier son burned and mutilated, giving you a look at his aging face without the familiar animation. But that was edge-of-the-seat plot, and you come out of that theater as you might leave the ancient Greek theater, with enormous insight. As old country singers go, Bridges ends up rich again. Has he learned anything? Well, he’s sober for a while. He tried to contact his own son, and I waited for the son to turn up.  He never does.