Screen Machine

Review: Crazy Heart

There is a depressing moment halfway through Crazy Heart when the song “If I Needed You” by Townes Van Sandt plays briefly. It’s haunting and beautiful, a simple refrain – “If you needed me, I would come to you” – rendered all the more painful because you know it’s not true: Townes is the last man any woman could’ve relied on in her hour of need.

The reason this is all so depressing is not just because it’s a sad old song by a sad old man; it’s depressing because being reminded of Van Sandt’s immense talent and regrettable end (a man who really did die an inveterate drug addict, playing dive bars for dimes) is so very far removed from this embarrassingly toothless attempt to invoke his memory.

There is the terrible miscasting – Jeff Bridges lacking anything approaching the mean edge required to infuse his character, Bad Blake, with the bitterness of a washed-up country legend. There is the cringe-worthy attempt to emulate the aesthetics of 1970s American cinema – which can be boiled down to squashing poor, talentless Maggie Gyllenhall’s boobs into as many awkward and bra-less outfits as possible. There is the complete lack of chemistry between her and Bridges – a pairing upon whose romantic entanglement, unfortunately, the whole film essentially hangs.

There is Colin Farrell.

Another key disappointment with Crazy Heart, and its seemingly impressive pedigree, is the fact that as a film it seems ignorant of how its construction could have supported its performances and story rather than worked against them. When I think of The Wrestler – to which this film has inevitably been compared – what I remember above all else is the sound of Mickey Rourke’s strained breathing in those endless moments when he is alone with himself. When I think of Paris, Texas, I remember abandoned urban wastelands – a drive-thru ATM, an anonymous peep show. Not much dialogue, but images and sounds that say plenty.

Nastassja Kinski in Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas

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What do I think of when I think of Crazy Heart? Mostly, the gaps. In credibility, in plot, in dramatic shape. The lack of a point. The lack of character development. Is it underwritten? I don’t think so. At one point, asked by Bad, “What’s the most important thing about you?”, Jean (Gyllenhall) answers, “I have a son” – this is dialogue as lifted from the pages from a studio pitch, and as excruciating an instance of exposition as I’ve ever had to pay $16 to sit through.

At the end of the day, if the formal structures of a film are doing their job, there is less pressure on the writing – and the actors. In Crazy Heart, the writing is pushed past breaking point, and it becomes a series of mere occurrences, none privileged over any other, like a poorly told story by a narrator hell bent on including every tedious detail in the interests of veracity. This happened, then this happened, then something else happened. The actors mug through every scene, desperate in their attempt to break through the straight-to-DVD banality that characterises this production. Bridges fairly sweats with the effort of it.

Finally, this film seems to want to be a tribute to tragic country characters like Townes Van Sandt and Merle Haggard – hopeless arseholes who also happened to be great artists. The film’s ending, in which Blake literally wanders off into the sunset, a man transformed by, if not triumphant in, True Love, suggests that all hopeless arseholes could turn into fine, upstanding, and financially viable men if they just “quit drinking, smoking and lost 25 pounds”.

I’m of a slightly more pessimistic bent, myself. Selfish loser and musical genius – far from being mutually exclusive – are just facts of life. Don’t confuse the artist with the art, the song with the singer. Films like Tender Mercies, Paris, Texas and The Wrestler acknowledge this reality, and yet still manage to find a story, beauty and meaning in that chaotic morass.  Tender Mercies, to which this film owes the greatest debt, particularly demonstrates that a happy ending, subtlety and credibility can all be achieved in the one film. Crazy Heart, in its milquetoast attempt to represent for humanism, doesn’t even come close.

Jessie Scott is a video artist, producer and a founding member of temporal art collective Tape Projects.

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