Crazy Heart

Bad Blake, a country singer of fifty-seven, plays bowling alleys, lives in his car and does not stop drinking. Meeting the journalist Jean Craddock, who comes to interview him, gives him one last chance. It is Scott Cooper's first film as director, from Thomas Cobb's 1987 novel. Jeff Bridges plays Blake and Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Jean, with Colin Farrell as the successful country star Tommy Sweet and Robert Duvall as Blake's friend Wayne. Bridges won Best Actor at the Oscars for it, along with the Golden Globe and the SAG award. The Weary Kind, written by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett, took both an Oscar and a Grammy. Reaching cinemas was not a given. Paramount Vantage had optioned it for direct-to-video; Fox Searchlight bought it and gave it a theatrical release. Filming ran through 2008 in New Mexico, Houston and Los Angeles. On a 7 million dollar budget it grossed 47.4 million worldwide. Who it is for: viewers who like musician films and pictures carried by a single performance. Who it is not for: anyone looking for originality. The story uses the alcoholic-artist template almost unchanged, and what holds it up is Bridges.