Review Country Strong [2010] | poetslandscape

MPAA Rating (PG-13) CNS/USCCB Rating (A-III) Roger Ebert's Review (2 1/2 stars) Fr. Dennis' Review (3 stars)

IMDb Listing - http://www.Imdb.Com/perceive/tt1555064/

CNS/USCCB Review - http://www.Usccb.Org/movies/c/countrystrong2011.Shtml

Roger Eberts' Review - http://rogerebert.Suntimes.Com/apps/%.Dll/article?AID=/20110105/REVIEWS/110109994

The film Country Strong [2010] is not complex. It's built round a forty-some thing u . S . A .-western Diva coming to the give up of her career. The storyline, the characters or maybe the camerawork are all very simple, at times even cartoonish. But just due to the fact the storyline is largely predictable and a number of the stadium concert scenes had been self-naturally filmed in front of a blue display display screen and pasted over inventory u.S. Western live performance pictures doesn?T disqualify Country Strong from being an specific and quite deep movie: I?Ve been a lifelong sucker for country song exactly because at the same time as, certain, it's miles frequently schmaltzy it's also approximately life.

So in the midst of the easy storyline a few big issues and tragedies play out.

The fictional Diva who?S career is nearing its prevent is called Kelly Canter (completed by way of way of Gwyneth Paltrow) a 40 a few component u . S . A . Movie star who?S been in rehab for a number of months after a disastrous overall performance in Dallas wherein, stone beneath the affect of alcohol with a 0.19 alcohol level, she tripped over an electrical cable and fell 10 feet off the level killing her 5 month vintage unborn little one in the system. Yes, Kelly became a large number.

Kelly?S producer-husband is James Canter (performed with the aid of manner of actual-life u . S . Music superstar and actor Tim McGraw. In actual-life, McGraw is married to actual-lifestyles 40-some thing year-antique united states of america western diva Faith Hill). James Canter has emerge as a slick, hardened u . S . Song manufacturer who in all likelihood positioned his mission (on the aspect of its perks) beforehand of his marriage long in advance than Kelly?S incident in Dallas. Nevertheless for a number of feasible/in all likelihood motives James appears to have had a tough time forgiving Kelly for that disaster. After all, Kelly?S fall could have certainly hit the couple?S bottom line. Further, manufacturer despite the fact that he come to be, his spouse Kelly might have surely been his most important purchaser. Now what? And then Kelly?S fall killed what could have been the couple?S best toddler. A former insurance salesman, James became a man of the world together with his feet on the ground. In assessment, Kelly have become a

In rehab, Kelly probably messes-up her life further by getting involved with a “young buck” named Beau Hutton (played by Garrett Hedlund) who lives for playing good-ole boy country music in small town bars and honky-tonks by night while working simply as a laborer at the Rehab center by day. This the two have in common – they both love the music. And Kelly becomes something of a mentor figure to Beau even though it's obvious that they were having a sexual relationship while he should have been working and she should have been working on getting better. James comes in one day (at the beginning of the movie) to take Kelly out of Rehab, prematurely as it is, because he’s lined-up a relatively short string of stadium shows that would still salvage her/their careers. He finds Beau in Kelly’s room (Kelly dressed only in a bathrobe). Beau is presented to James as one of her “sponsors.” James lets it go.

It soon becomes clear that James also has put together other plans while Kelly’s been in Rehab. Sure Kelly Canter is going to be the head-liner of this tour, but he’s also found another, much younger, singer named Chiles Stanton who's “a small town prom queen” played superbly by actress Leighton Meister of Gossip Girl fame. Just how the two met, God only knows and why big-time Nashville producer James Canter would pull someone like Chiles to out of thin air to be the warm-up act for his mega-star wife, Kelly Canter, is a further mystery. Obviously, sex was involved but it’s reflective of a sadness and desperation felt by both James Canter and Chiles. Anyway, if Kelly is a “broken angel”, Chiles is a “broken prom queen.” And the scriptwriters leave it to Beau to try to save them both.

To give some respectability to Chiles Stanton’s stature, she given a gig in a small club on Broadway street in Nashville, where it turns out that Beau was supposed to be the head-liner that night. He gets his set but the board outside puts Chiles as the head-liner. Though pissed-off, he goes along. Then Chiles goes-up on stage and freezes. Not wanting to see her “die” like that on stage, Beau comes up on stage with his guitar singing Garth Brooks' "(I've Got) Friends in Low Places" and nods to Chiles to chime in. She does, regains her confidence and proves that she can sing, finishing then the rest of her set.

James, who only met Beau that morning while pulling his wife out of rehab is impressed and after the show asks Beau to join the tour. Initially, Beau says no saying that “big stadiums are not [his] thing.” But he’s guilted into it as James notes that he actually could help both Chiles and Kelly. And besides wasn’t he one of Kelly’s “sponsors” after all. So Beau says yes.

A few days later, the tour leaves Nashville for Houston, Austin and, finally, Dallas. As described above, the tour has been put together by spit and polish and is hanging together by a thread.

Much of course happens. Many younger musicians and “purists” of all ages and genres would appreciate the movie’s obvious criticism of Big Music. Sure there are the lights and there is the fame, but at what cost? The portrayal of the monstrous pseudo-Fascism of the stadium shows would be something that Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters would certainly appreciate as his album / movie The Wall of nearly 30 years ago made the same point.

One of the joys of country music for its musicians is that one could happily grow old working a day job and just playing/frequenting a few small bars and honky-tonks singing lyrics like “I ain’t no poet, I'm just a drunk with a pen” without ever having to sell one’s own soul.

I _liked_ this movie and I liked its characters (as broken and as cardboard cutouts as they often seemed). But then I’ve always been a sucker for heartfelt but hopelessly schmaltzy lyrics like those above or the “small town prom queen” Chiles’ "Summer Girl" – “I'm just a summer girl, I wear my flip flops. When I let my hair down, that's when the party starts. And who needs a boyfriend, I’ve got my girl friends, and when we get together, the summer never ends.”

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