Crazy Heart at Footcandles in Hickory, NC

This is a story of the loneliest man in the world who wandered through a maze of other lonely people all of whom were finding happiness in pretending to be happy.  

Whisky highs and toilet bowl lows frame the boundaries of this story while "happiness" plays a distracted beat in the background, occasionally coming forward to scream and strut, then falling back again and collapse into its accustomed metronomic stupor while your attention is diverted to some newly detected pulse of life.  

The rhythm of action that sweeps through this movie rises and falls portending some incredible climax of consummate triumph, while an accompanying  counterpoint of left-handed melody suggests an impendingly awful disaster.  There is betrayal and there is friendship and loyalty beyond all reason. People come as shadows into this movie and some quickly flare while others slowly bloom and the story moves on, carrying them all along as Crazy Heart is eventually anointed and baptized with the reality he has tried to ignore.  Redemption surely cannot be possible for such as he.  Or is it?  What finally happens, at the end of the movie, is clearly the beginning of a new story.

The photography, in my humble estimation, was not good.  Throwaway stuff - filler - a lot of it was.  Really good close ups, reveling in great lighting and good acting but really just mediocre in between those shots.  Too bad especially given the beautiful region of the American southwest. Much of that done at noon as if to say "Hey man this is a Transition! Get another handful of popcorn, check your watch, see what time it is."  The music too.  The background music, had a way of telling you what was coming.  When you thought the worst was going to happen you could just tune into the music in the auditorium and if it was "so-so", then OK, no big deal.  They could have done better with this. And also - this is a country music movie, so why was so much of the background music done in non-country music?  A complicated plot this movie has and intended for a complicated audience.

Frankly, I don't know how anyone could do the acting job that Jeff Bridges did in this movie and ever function again as a normal human being. If he dies soon, we'll know what did him in.  If he does another one this good but different, then I don't know what we'll do.