Country Strong

Written and directed by Shana Feste, Country Strong follows recovering alcoholic Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) as she embarks on a comeback tour alongside a pair of up-and-comers (Garrett Hedlund’s Beau and Leighton Meester’s Chiles) – with the movie subsequently detailing the characters’ melodramatic exploits in both their professional and personal lives. The decidedly conventional nature of the film’s setup is, at the outset, not quite as problematic as one might’ve suspected, as Feste does a nice job of eliciting appealing performances from the various actors (eg contrast Hedlund’s charismatic work here with his stiff turn in 2010’s Tron: Legacy) – with the affable vibe perpetuated by the ongoing inclusion of catchy, toe-tapping musical interludes. There’s little doubt, then, that Country Strong‘s downfall stems from its almost egregiously deliberate pace, as the film is neither gritty nor authentic enough to justify the slow-moving nature of its episodic midsection. The presence of a few standout sequences here and there (eg a shamelessly manipulative yet admittedly engrossing scene in which Kelly entertains a young boy suffering from leukemia) ensures that the movie generally remains watchable even through its more overtly tedious stretches, while the prolonged buildup to the climactic concert is actually quite well done and surprisingly entertaining – though Feste squanders the improved atmosphere by subsequently emphasizing the concert itself to an almost unreasonable degree. It is, as a result, not surprising to note that the tearjerking finale is hardly able to pack the emotional punch that Feste is clearly aiming for, which effectively ensures that Country Strong, when everything’s said and done, can’t help but come off as a well-intentioned misfire.

** out of ****