“It’s easy to forget, as Billboard’s Country charts fill with faintly twangy pop and lazy paeans to dogs and trucks, that this music has an atavistic darkness.”

One of the best reviews of Crazy Heart I’ve read so far. I loved the observation about the relationship between Colin Farrell’s “Tommy Sweet” and Jeff Bridges’ “Bad Blake” – something I felt was very strong in the picture, especially the duet scene mentioned.

The part is a vindication of Bridges’s unaffected talent and is his best in years. He’s as good a reactor as actor, so patient and sedentary that his performance’s quiet ache sneaks up on you when he’s doing nothing more dramatic than settling onto a barstool. Bad recites his age as a refrain—”I’m 57 years old”—and it seems Bridges has lived them all. It’s in the habitual gestures, the way he negotiates with a mic stand and passes a drink from his chest to the bedside table with a coil of the wrist—for Bad is usually sprawled and splayed.