Talking Pictures

Rich Bonaduce reviews “Country Strong”

Rich’s Quickie: “Country WRONG!” Or maybe “Country Weak?” “Country Lame?” Or howabout “Most Of This Country Was Left On The Edit Room Floor?”

God’s Country: Only the most devoted of country fans will enjoy this predictable ode to virtually every country song and/or big star cliché you’ve ever heard. And although its cast does a fine enough job, they can’t save this script from itself.

CounTry, try again! What buzz exists around this movie has mostly to do with the actors singing convincingly; and they do. And although that may be fine for a music video, decent singing does not a movie make. Also, with pitch correction and all manner of studio tricks that abound nowadays, I’m sure I could get my dog to sound at least half as good. Which leaves us with the movie…
…and what a movie. It gives us virtually no one to identify with or cheer for, with a cast nearly void of any desirable attributes. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Kelly Canter, a spoiled alcoholic near has-been country star, who is having a rough time on the circuit after losing her developing baby after drunkenly falling off a stage. She sleeps around on her husband for reasons no more important than securing a tour date whilst suspecting her husband – played by real-life country star Tim McGraw – is cheating on her. Meanwhile, McGraw’s James Canter is a shell of man, both manipulative and submissive in his handling of his meal ticket wife while keeping his eye out for newer, fresher, greener and younger horizons without all the hassle in the form of newcomer Chiles Stanton (played by Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester). Meester’s Stanton is an airhead beauty pageant wannabe, who often freezes up on stage, which may keep her from fulfilling her dream of being the next bubble gum country star. She’s also gullible as to fall for the aw shucks manner of fellow country-crooner Beau Hutton (played by Garret Hedlund of TRON: Legacy), even after he treats her badly a bit. Meanwhile, Hedlund’s Hutton has also hitched his wagon to the Kelly Canter star by sleeping with her while she was good and vulnerable in rehab, but may have genuinely fallen for her; indeed, he’s one of the few people who seems to show concern for her in her delicate state. That is at least until Canter inexplicably breaks it off with him for some unknown reason, and then he finds solace rather quickly in Stanton’s bed… and equally inexplicably he falls for her, and eventually asks her to leave the circuit altogether and go with him to some Podunk town and sing to only a barful of people since he disdains the country bubble gum they’ve recently been chewing. Just as unbelievably, she eventually agrees.
All this, and I have yet to mention the bird-in-a-box as useless and incomplete metaphor, the undeveloped subplots, the motivations that turn on a dime with no explanation, that the only bona fide country star in the movie doesn’t sing a note, or that Paltrow’s character (or any of them, for that matter), don’t display anything like unto Strength — much less of the Country Strong variety, whatever THAT means. Just mosey on right by Country Strong.

Movie Grade: D

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements involving alcohol abuse and some sexual content.
Director: Shana Feste
Writer: Shana Feste

Tags: abc4, country strong, CW30, review, Rich Bonaduce, talking pictures
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