Bad Blake is a chain-smoking, alcoholic country singer playing shows at small-town bowling alleys and who hasn’t written a new song in years. He doesn’t resemble a likeable person by any means, but Bad, like the movie Crazy Heart, defies these odds to win our hearts.
Scott Cooper’s directorial debut tells us almost everything we need to know about Bad in the first five minutes. The movie opens with wide, empty fields and a rusty, beaten-up car driving alone on a country road. When there are other cars around, they are all headed in the opposite direction. Bad, brilliantly played by Jeff Bridges, is a loner, constantly going in the wrong direction and isolating himself in a large, beautiful world. He talks but no one seems to understand what he’s saying, and he does not understand them. While preparing for a gig, Bad cannot comprehend why he is not entitled to free drinks from the venue or why his back-up band needs so much rehearsal time. They, in turn, do not understand his perpetual need for a drink or that the creative mind works on its own clock. But none of that matters when he sings.
Bad’s songs, written by music producer T Bone Burnett, are about times gone by and his own fatigue. The music is invigorating and Bridges singing, like the rest of his performance, is spot on. Oddly missing from the movie is anyone who is remotely critical of Bad’s music. Everyone he meets loves his songs and recognizes him as a legend. Even his business-minded agent, who is a constant headache for Bad, knows he is representing a true artist.
But despite this abundance of appreciation, Bad is unable to function without a guitar to keep space between him and his audience—and in turn the movie’s audience—and a drink close by to numb the world’s pains. He is a weary musician who guards his weariness from the world. He despises the new, sleek country music and the soul-sucking industry it belongs to and, like many tortured artists, has a failed family life. But beyond the subtle hints into his past sprinkled throughout the narrative, Bad keeps his audience at guitar’s length.
Like many damaged men in need of rebirth, all this begins to change with the arrival of a soul-saving girl. Maggie Gyllenhaal is Jean Craddock, a Santa Fe journalist doing an interview with the singer, who serves as the audience’s eyes and ears in the film and her unlikely relationship with Bad mimics our own. Bad is old enough to be her father and half the time they are together he is drowning in alcohol, and yet a romance grows. She is drawn in by his pain and his “so be it” attitude towards life. Likewise, Bridges performance draws you in with the small gestures and grunts of a man more complex and damaged than anyone knows, and more capable of love than anyone would guess. He could have easily overdone this role, but instead, for example, moments of anger are portrayed by a particularly forceful lighting of a cigarette rather than a tantrum in a motel room.
But the relationship that builds between Jean and Bad and ourselves and Bad is not the healthiest or most fulfilling. As in real life, it is filled with imperfections and by the end of it, we are not sure why it must end, but we know we are better because of it.
Then there is Bad’s anger at his former protégé, Tommy Sweet (a surprising performance from Colin Farrell) who he used to tour with until Tommy hit it big and left Bad behind. Tommy is hardly the villain Bad thinks him to be and is eager to make amends, but Bad’s sense of betrayal runs deep, deeper than Bridges will let us see.
After his first interview with Jean, Bad asks her “Did you get what you need?” in regards to her article. This is a question you may be asking yourself as you walk away from the movie. It is a tough question, and the answer could very well be “no,” but it’s not from any flaw of the story or directing, but because Bridges played his role so forcefully that he denies you the traditional comfort and simplicity found in similar stories.
