Complicated Crazy Heart

I just viewed two movies on Blu-Ray CD’s from Netflix:  “It’s Complicated” and “Crazy Heart.”

As readers to this blog know, I’m pretty much a sucker for most romantic comedies.  I like them because they make me feel happy and because they have a predictable, comforting formula.  One constant is that in one way or another there is always a monkey wrench thrown into the gears of the blooming romance, be it a seeming betrayal, an antic mix-up, or a dark secret revealed.  And, almost always, the romance ends up back on track in the end. 

With that said, “It’s Complicated” doesn’t quite follow that the formula, which makes it all the more interesting.  The twist on the formula is the that main protagonists, Streep and Baldwin had been married for twenty years or so and then divorced for ten.  They had no secrets, they had already gone through the betrayals, and they knew each other’s quirks so well that mix-ups didn’t really phase them that much.  So, what the writers did was shunt  the blooming romance to a third character, Steve Martin.  That way they could work in one of the all-time great betrayal, antic mix-up scenes ever:  the web cam fiasco.  I’m still cracking up over it.  But the other interesting break from formula was that the blooming romance did not get back on track.  I fully expected that Streep and Martin would have the usual formulaic make up scene, but instead, Martin decides he cannot take the risk.  True, the movie ends with the two of them under an umbrella, but we know it ain’t gonna happen.  Anyway, it is a terrific movie in my book.  If you want to read a good review of the movie, check out Michael Lally’s take.

“Crazy Heart” was also a surprise of sorts.  After Bad Blake suffers the truly terrifying experience of losing his girl friend’s kid while he is drunk as usual, he hits bottom and cleans up in rehab.  Now according to the formula for these types of movies he either gets back together with the girl friend (redemption), or is rejected and relapses (destruction).  The nice, and surprising, thing about “Crazy Heart” is that after the beautiful rejection scene at the girl friend’s screen door, (with him naively expecting to resume the relationship), he does not fall off the wagon and go into a tailspin.  Instead he stays sober and experiences happiness and prosperity in the end.  Nice.  My only criticism of the movie is casting Colin Farrell as “Tommy.”   I just could not buy him in the role of a successful country western singer.  But in the end, the movie IS Jeff Bridges, who certainly deserved his Oscar.