Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture

A journey towards redemption

byStaff writers
28 February 2010
Reading Time: 3 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

CRAZY HEART.
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall.
Directed: Scott Cooper.
Rated  M (Coarse language). 111 min.
Reviewed by Peter W. Sheehan

BASED on a 1987 novel of the same name by Thomas Cobb, this film is a quality romantic drama that carries considerable punch.

Earning an Oscar nomination for best performance by a leading actor (Jeff Bridges) and best performance by a supporting actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the film tells the story, with great emotional realism, of a down-and-out ageing alcoholic singer, “Bad” Blake (Jeff Bridges), who is reduced to playing in bowling alleys and dingy bars in Southwest America.

Alcohol provides his anchor in life after five (or maybe four, he says) failed marriages.

Blake hasn’t had a hit in years and is destitute financially.

He is a has-been country singer, who has seen much better times, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is Jean Craddock, a much younger, divorced journalist-writer, who interviews him and falls for him despite all the risks.

The love between them becomes the reason why Blake begins to turn his life around and he bonds to Jean’s son.

Her tough-mindedness becomes a foil to his vulnerability and the unlikely couple connect with some surprising chemistry.

But alcoholism fails to loosen its grip, and the relationship between Blake and Jean falters.

While drunk, Blake loses Jean’s child in a shopping centre, and that is not a risk Jean is willing to take again.

Related Stories

All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

What might have been redemption through a love relationship eventually becomes one found through music as Blake re-discovers his professional friendship with Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) a musician he once mentored and who throws him a helping hand, and Wayne (Robert Duvall) an old friend, who helps him find fresh meaning in life.  

Ultimately, it is the power of music from within that reforms Blake. Music provides a core structure to the film and the movie fuses music and drama together very well.

The temptation to become sentimental is always present in the movie, but the film manages to avoid its lure.
Bridges sings his own songs in the movie (as Farrell does), and in a world of artificial country music the film tries to capture “what real country  is”.

Bridges draws the audience deep into the recesses of Blake’s heartbreaks and his victories become our own.

The story of a faded alcoholic trying to rediscover himself is one that is old and has been tried many times, but Bridges gives that story new meaning and one forgets about the derivative nature of the plot-line in the authenticity of his acting.

He enlivens the stereotype of the jaded artist, and his generous performance rises above any familiarity in the story-line.

The quality of Bridge’s performance, with its casualness and dignity, has already won for him the 2010 Golden Globe award for best actor.

The film is an impressive first performance by Scott Cooper who made the movie in just 24 days, and he provides the film with sustained and penetrating direction that works.

Fortunately, Bridges took up the role that he originally turned down, and Cooper directs him unerringly by using both humour and sadness.  

There are lots of moral lessons to draw from this movie. After a life filled with bad habits, it is possible to place them behind you.

Although it is not a feel-good movie and it is aimed essentially at grown-ups, the film offers food for thought about relationships that count, and the effects that drinking can have on them.

Despite the excessive drinking and strong language in the movie, its lessons are worth heeding and the film conveys them with force.

Blake’s journey to redemption is as positive for us, as it is involving.    

Peter W. Sheehan is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting.

 

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Precious keeps pulling you in

Next Post

Chile in crisis

Staff writers

Related Posts

Vatican

All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

27 May 2022
Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria
World

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

27 May 2022
Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia
Australia

Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

26 May 2022
Next Post

Chile in crisis

Muslim leader supporting battle to save Scott Rush

Sri Lanka faces sanctions

Popular News

  • Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

    Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Christian Brothers’ community mourn the passing of Brother Tony White

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Abdallah family launch forgiveness campaign one year on from crash that killed four children

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Vatican

All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

by Staff writers
27 May 2022
0

By Catholic News Agency THE Vatican is inviting Catholics to join Pope Francis in praying the rosary...

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

27 May 2022
Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

26 May 2022
Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

26 May 2022
Pope Francis – ‘My heart is broken’ over Texas elementary school shooting

Pope Francis – ‘My heart is broken’ over Texas elementary school shooting

26 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping