Redemption and renewal
Cathleen Falsani/Religion News Service
Issue date: 2/7/10 Section: Arts and Entertainment
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The fall-from-grace-followed-by-a-spectacular-comeback is about as ingrained in our American psyche (and soul) as rooting for the underdog, generosity to those in distress and second chances.
So when I walked into the movie theater recently to see the new Jeff Bridges film "Crazy Heart," I was expecting to love it. I am a diehard Bridges fan (he is the Dude from "The Big Lebowski," after all) and almost as big a fan of T Bone Burnett, who wrote the film's original music.
What I didn't anticipate was being deeply moved spiritually -- transformed by it, in some small way, really.
As I sat through the previews in the darkened, almost empty theater, I did something I haven't done before in that kind of a venue: I prayed.
For whatever reason, I felt led to talk to God before the film started. "Help me to see what you want me to see in this movie," I prayed. "Let me be open and awake to your truth in it. Allow it to change me." Some prayers really do get answered.
"Crazy Heart" is an extraordinarily beautiful film about real redemption. Bridges, who plays the protagonist Bad Blake, gives the performance of his already august acting career. Maggie Gyllenhaal, playing Jean Craddock, a fledgling journalist and Blake's love interest, is so good and true and believable that she more than once moved me to tears.
Bridges has already won a Golden Globe for his portrayal, and both he and Gyllenhaal deserve an Oscar, or at least a nomination.
Bad Blake is a down-on-his-luck country singer who lives on the margins, basking in the last vestiges of the light of tremendous success he enjoyed some years earlier, before alcoholism and despair all but snuffed it out.
Despite the nickname he embraces with a swagger, Blake is not a bad man. He is weak and ill, floundering in the hell he has created for himself with one unfortunate decision after another and the albatross of addiction.
Blake has redeeming qualities. He is a remarkably talented musician. He tells true stories of pain and loss. And he possesses a yearning for and ability to love ardently.
He is not a lost cause, even if he doesn't believe that about himself much of the time. When he opens his heart to love and be loved, he is transformed, though not without stumbling over his own weakness and selfishness.
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