Rants and Raves – Country Strong

First let me say that I CANNOT BELIEVE I am going to write a post about this movie. I had zero interest in seeing this film. It might have even been LESS than zero interest. The only thing worse than a cornball country music movie is a cornball country music movie starring someone who doesn’t even have a southern accent (I’ll admit there is a soft spot in my heart for Pure Country, despite its epically shitty nature). It was on cable last week and since there was nothing else on, all my DVR viewing was caught up and all the summer shows have reached finale-time, I decided to watch.

1. This is not a great movie. Probably it is not a good movie. It is an OKAY movie.

2. Garrett Hedlund makes the entire film worth watching, if only because he has the best songs in the whole damn thing.

3. Gwyneth Paltrow is fucking amazing. They gave her a bunch of shit songs and bad costumes but she does this AMAZING performance of a woman hanging on by the thinnest thread possible. She’s got about zero chemistry with Hedlund but she is so incredible in this role that it’s kind of a shame that she won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love since this performance is so much more worthy. (Not that this film should be nominated in any way other than her performance.) Whether you love her or hate her, this is a phenomenal performance.

4. The filmmakers made the brilliant choice of releasing a secondary soundtrack including all the tracks sung by the actual actors. I actually purchased all of Hedlund’s songs individually and it was completely worth it.

5. Leighton Meester was sort of wooden and not especially memorable, except that she was the only one with wardrobe worse than Gwyneth’s.

6. What the fuck is with that shit-ass title? FUCKING AWFUL.

Worth watching if you’re not paying more than $2 for it, for Hedlund’s songs and Paltrow’s performance.