Country Strong Review
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Country Strong
Sony
PG 13 112
Whenever there’s an idea being made into a motion picture you’ll find there are more than one studio working on different versions of that idea.
When the “kind of” true story about a drunken carousing country artist and the redemption thereof hit the screen in CRAZY HEART, you could easily bet there was something similar in the works.
This time we’ll try a female star who has drunk away her career and valiantly struggles back to her former glory.
Of course there’s plenty of the stock plot moves from the country music cliché file including plenty of booze plenty of infidelity and a dollop backsliding. Wrap that up with a whole lot of newly produced music to be promoted and tag on a bittersweet ending and you ought to have a hit on your hands, especially if you have a real country singer and a respected star. (Tim McGraw and Gwyneth Paltrow) Oh and don’t forget the up and coming youngster about to supplant the aging diva as America’s sweetheart.
We all know Paltrow can act and now we know she can sing. Even with all the pitch correction and FX Nashville has at her disposal the songs are equal to any in the business.
The problem is the cookie cutter way that each and every hackneyed bit is strung together in an attempt to tell a story.
It’s not that anything is particularly weak, it’s just that everything is so predictable that there’s almost no reason to watch.
As I said the songs and performances are fine and I’m sure it’s going to be a successful CD but as a film?
Not really.
C
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