What I Think About Movies I've Seen

Jeff Bridges plays the role of Bad Blake, an always-drunk, chain-smoking, has-been country singer who spends his time driving between towns playing in bars, bowling alleys, or wherever else his agent can book him. In one such town, he meets Jean (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), a writer for the local newspaper who wants to interview him for an article, but their relationship quickly progresses from professional to something quite a bit more intimate.

I got a free screening of this movie as an Austin Film Festival member. I probably wouldn't have seen it otherwise, since it didn't really look like my kind of movie from the trailer, but I'm not disappointed that I went. Jeff gave a solid performance, as did Robert Duvall (playing one of Bad's old friends) and Colin Farrell (in the unlikely role of a country singer whose fame has far eclipsed that of his former mentor), and the country music wasn't as annoying as it could have been. However, I had a hard time buying how quickly Jean (in her 30s and burdened with a kid from a failed marriage) fell for Bad (in his late 50s, obviously flawed, and with his own string of ex-wives). It also wasn't hard to see how the story was going to progress, and there were a couple of times that I found it somewhat painful to watch what I knew was coming. It's not a bad movie, but I think that it could have been better by narrowing the focus to spend more time making their relationship more believable.