GRADE: B

Jeff Bridges’ Academy Award winning role as a former big time country music singer-songwriter now on the skids is the highlight of this moderately interesting indie; a film that meanders effortlessly between romantic drama and soul-searching character study without ever laying it on too thick.

Based on the book by Thomas Cobb, “Crazy Heart” is a slice-of-life about Bad Blake, once among the industry’s most sought after performers and still something of a legend. Pushing 60 and clearly an alcoholic, his days are now spent on lonesome backwater roads that lead from one low rent gig to the next.

The film’s entire first act is comprised of this ritual; the intoxicated arrival followed by more drinking while waiting to go on; the inebriated stage performance with glimpses of past precision; more drinking, then the hookup with some woman—any woman—to ease the burden of a pale existence before heading to another town to repeat the cycle.

These scenes are mounted effectively, though a bit more humor would have been welcome. But even as the second act begins with Blake’s introduction to love interest Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the story remains moored closely to the ground. Anyone expecting Bridges’ hard-drinking character will make “Crazy Heart” something of a country western version of “The Big Lebowski” will be sorely disappointed.

That’s not to say “Crazy Heart” is all 12-Step recovery; most of the film follows Blake’s slow evolution from embittered, isolated artist to respectable icon in a fashion low on moralizing and generally engaging. There are many nice vignettes and a few moments of superb drama mixed in with the otherwise routine advancement of the story, which boasts many fine pictorial compositions and a fitting musical score from T-Bone Burnett.

The story’s resolution is not routine, however, and the style in which first-time director Scott Cooper makes his way getting there is easy to take, if unremarkable. The result is an interesting and worthwhile little film, with Bridges—who’s frankly turned in even better performances than the one here—leading the way, carrying the whole affair nicely on his broadly talented shoulders.

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