I finally got a chance to go see Country Strong last week with a girlfriend. I seriously thought I was going to have to go see it by myself because I couldn’t seem to talk anyone into going with me. Apparently this movie is everyone’s Kryptonite. LOL Fortunately a friend took pity on me and we went. It was a mid week afternoon and there were only 2 other people in the theater. Probably not a good sign but I didn’t think much of it considering the entire mall looked empty.
When I sat down to watch this movie I knew absolutely nothing about it beyond what I had seen in the movie trailers and the noticeably absent mention of this movie in any way on Twitter. I figured either it was bad or no one wanted to see it but I made sure not to look up reviews on it because I didn’t want my impression to be clouded.
See the trailer HERE.
A week after I’ve seen the movie and I still don’t think I can tell you whether I thought it was good or bad. There was a hot cast of characters, fun country music, cliches galore, the sexiest male performance I’ve seen in a very long time, plot holes to leave you frustrated and the most messed up set of characters to make you laugh, cry and cringe.
As a writer I did enjoy the messy realism these characters portrayed on screen. I found myself saying more than once “my editor would never let me get away with that.” LOL Still, I got invested in these very flawed characters and was enjoying the movie quite a bit until the end. (I’d think this says a lot about the quality of the acting in this movie despite the script flaws) This might be too spoilery for some but I can’t not say it. The ending sucked bad.
I am at heart a romance writer and crave a happy ending or at least the alluding to one. From the movie trailers this movie looked like a great come-back story. It’s not. I won’t say exactly what happens but many of you can guess. Maybe if I’d had an inkling to how this movie would turn out I wouldn’t be so upset, but I left the theater stunned and stayed that way for quite a while.
I made myself think about it and from a writers perspective the ending made sense to me. Not to mention when you make the kinds of life altering mistakes these characters did it’s only right to show the consequences. We all know life is messy and often not pretty. Bad things happen and many books and movies push a happy ending over logic all the time. But I also know that when your gut tells you that you have to write that hard emotional ending, you’d better come to the table expecting a lot of people to not be happy about it.
In the end, I absolutely do not regret seeing it. Had I not gone I would have missed the absolutely amazing breakout performance by Garrett Hedlund who I’d never even heard of. Had I not seen it I would have not been inspired by this man for a whole new story. Hell, he might serve as writing inspiration for quite some time.
My Favorite line in the movie:
“Love and fame can’t live together.”
The bottom line for me is that when it comes out on video I will be watching it again and maybe again. At least now I know how it ends so I can go in expecting it.
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