Crazy Heart on Arte: Jeff Bridges was born for this role (critic)

Bridges won the Oscar for best actor for this drama by Scott Cooper.

Country evening this Wednesday January 21 on Arte. The channel broadcasts Crazy Hearta film awarded twice at the 2010 Oscars. Please note, it is not offered in replay on Arte.TV. If you missed it, you can watch it on VOD for only €2.99 on Première Max.

Crazy Heart is the first feature film by Scott Cooper, who has since signed Strictly Criminal (with Johnny Depp), Hostiles (with Christian Bale) and recently Deliver Me from Nowherethe biopic about Bruce Springsteen played by Jeremy Allen White.

Jeff Bridges received the Oscar for best actor for this role of depressive singer, inspired by country artist Hank Thompson, where he shared the bill with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall. The film was rewarded with a second Oscar, for best original song for “The Weary Kind”, co-written and performed by Ryan Bingham.

Synopsis:

At 57, country singer Bad Blake still lives on the road, playing old hits in trashy bars and bowling alleys. What remains of his celebrity disappears little by little. The best he can hope for today is to open for Tommy Sweet, who was his young protégé and from whom he taught everything.

From small concert to small concert, Bad’s road follows its course, until the evening when he meets Jean, a local journalist. Bad gets more attached than usual. Even though he makes no promises, and Jean, a divorced mother, knows that she has nothing to expect from him, they keep returning to each other’s arms.

But is Bad, barely able to keep his head above water, capable of caring for anyone other than himself?

During its French release, Crazy Heart had conquered First. Our review from the time by Gérard Delorme:

Country music has so far only inspired a few rare successes in cinema (Tender Mercies, with Robert Duvall, and Honkytonk Man, by and with Clint Eastwood). Crazy Heart is worthy of the same tradition and recalls the crucial place of this music – as important as jazz – in the American cultural landscape. This first film by an actor who has moved on to directing is literally carried by its two main performers: Maggie Gyllenhaal, generous and brave as a single mother who still wants to try her luck with a man named Bad, and Jeff Bridges, who seems to have been born for this conflicting role opposing charm and sweetness to irresponsibility and self-destruction.