Dir. Shana Feste, USA, 2010, 117mins,
Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Garrett Hedlund, Leighton Meester
Review by Matthew Rodgers
This is a difficult sell: a genre movie about a type of music that doesn’t travel too well outside of the southern reaches of the US of A, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, a fantastic actress who garnered herself a bit of a negative image following her Oscar blubbing for Shakespeare In Love. For the record, I am not a fan of Country and Western, with little or no knowledge beyond Billy Ray Cyrus and last year’s Crazy Heart. But I’d be a “rootin tootin sunuva gun” if I didn’t admit to liking Country Strong a little bit, and yes, at times my foot began to tap away to the clichéd warbling of the ensemble cast.
It’s all a little bit rubbish, and won’t win any new fans for the aforementioned star or genre, and I’m not sure it will do my credibility as a reviewer any good to recommend it. But if you do sit your Levi’s down on a bale of hay to watch this schmaltzy slice of drama, then come the encore, you might not be singing the blues as much as you thought you would.
Paltrow is Kelly Canter, a stadium filling Country and Western star, who is emerging from rehab for alcoholism, following a tragic performance in Dallas that cost her and her husband/manager, James (Tim McGraw) their child. Forming an unprofessional relationship with care worker Beau (Garrett Hedlund), who also happens to be talented with a guitar in hand, she goes on the road for a comeback tour that has disaster written all over it. Joining them is up-and-coming star, Chiles Stanton (Meester), who may or may not be sleeping with her husband, as well as adding to her insecurity as a performing artist. Tangled web woven and all that, this is the stuff of daytime TV, as Kelly falls off the wagon, gets back on, falls off again and so on.
Paltrow is headlining, so her performance must be the crux of any review, and it’s one of borderline mawkishness. Every time she breaks down in tears, you will roll your eyes in an overdramatic way that wouldn’t look out of place on-screen. It’s when she ropes in the histrionics that you’re reminded what a charming screen presence she can be. The film is over-sentimental, as evidenced in a sweet little sequence in which she ad-libs a song to a terminally ill child, but you can’t help but be won over by her. As for the singing, the rumours that she could release an album sometime this year shouldn’t be met with derision, because this girl can wail with the best of them, though admittedly the three song finale is a little too much to handle. Her efforts could have been spread more thinly throughout the film to better effect.
The real draw is the support act of Hedlund. His character is more interesting and slightly less clichéd, a young man who understands the Cameron Crowe Almost Famous meaning of music appreciation – tortured by a fear of “selling out”, but who can also belt out a blinding tune. His conflicts and relationships throughout the movie are more interesting than any Paltrow has with her demons.
Country Song is like a guilty pleasure album that you have on the CD shelf (in my case it’s Take That: Greatest Hits). There are a lot of parts that you don’t necessarily like and you won’t tell everyone that you own it, but when you put it on it’s actually quite enjoyable. A bit. Sort of.
