Country Strong (Feste, 2010)

Last updated on: January 31, 2015 at 9:32 pm by Kenneth R. Morefield

Country Strong (Feste, 2010) 2015-01-31T21:32:20-05:00 Kenneth R. Morefield

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Gwyneth Paltrow in Country Strong

Country Strong opens promisingly enough: it uses the opening scenes to set up its premise and establish its backstory. Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a multiple Grammy winning country music artist who is in rehab after a concert meltdown which also either caused or contributed to the loss of her unborn child. She is befriended by Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund). Then her manager and husband (Tim McGraw) shows up to take her out of rehab early and get her back on the concert trail. He insists on taking a fresh, young ingénue (Leighton Meester) with them; she wants Beau as an opening act and security blanket. From such setups good movies have been made. Maybe, a lot of good movies have been made because there are so many places one can take that story. It could be about Kelly’s attempts to regain her career. It could be about the relationship between her and her husband. It could be an adultery romance about how Beau is the only one who really sees and loves her. It could be a bildungsroman about Beau and how he wants his own success, the ingénue, or to turn his back on the performing life. It could give up any pretense of a story and just string country music concert footage together. It could spring off from its premise in any number of directions and still be a good, effective film. What it can’t be–at least in my book–is about all of those things (and more), since many of them pull in opposite directions from each other.

It certainly doesn’t help matters much that writer/director Shana Feste appears to have adopted the conviction that every single scene must deliver a knockout punch and so will only ever throw haymakers. Such a structural design is hard enough in an action film, but it is near impossible in a melodrama. The internal logic that will demand characters act in such a way as to bring any one scene to a dramatic head is seldom sustained and often contradicted, making the film feel as though it lurches in various directions rather than ever moving, at whatever speed, towards a consistent goal.

Neither does it help that the film has apparently adopted the Law & Order symbolism attitude towards Christianity, that anyone who wears a cross, goes to church, or invokes the name of Jesus must, in the next thirty minutes, be shown to be a hypocrite, kill someone, or commit adultery. I’m sure there is plenty of hypocritical, visible Christianity in the country music world (as there is in the suburban world or business world), but there is a fine line between representing that all faiths or ideologies have hypocritical adherents and saying that such hypocrisies are the sum total of what said ideologies are comprised of.

The religion stuff is a red herring, though, I know. It wouldn’t bother me if I was focused on the story or if I could see these characters as realistic people with actual human flaws. There’s not really much of a story to focus on, though, and to the extent the film invites us to see the characters as realistic, its coda (presented in a letter from Kelly to Beau) vigorously defends the worst choices those characters have made. Even that position might work narratively if the film could convincingly argue that there is a connection between those decisions and the qualities (often talked about but rarely displayed) that are supposed to make these characters, admirable, interesting, or even just “Country Strong.”

Having said all that, I feel constrained to add that the theater I saw the film in was fuller than I expected, and the crowd watching it appeared to be getting what it wanted. I’m searching for a way to say that the film might not be bad but just designed to appeal to a different demographic. I just haven’t found a way to say it that doesn’t imply that said demographic is comprised of those people who don’t care if a movie is bad as long as it is about a subject that they like.

Previous Post

January 4, 2011

10 Years Later…

Next Post

January 7, 2011 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson, 2001)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 10 Years Later 1999 Top 5 2007 Top 10 2008 Favorite Discoveries 2008 Top 10 2009 Favorite Discoveries 2009 Top 10 2010 Favorite Discoveries 2010 Top 10 2011 Top 10 2012 Top Ten 2013 Top Ten 2014 Top Ten Best Picture Winners Christian Spotlight on Entertainment Christianity Today Coming Soon Disclosure Disclosure--AS Disclosure--Book Disclosure--DVDS Disclosure--SEOL Disclosure--Travel Dissenting Opinion Elsewhere Emergenetics Essays Featured Film Fest DC--2014 Film Festivals Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2011 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2012 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2013 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2014 Headline Interviews Laura on the Oscar Winners Podcasts Quick Impressions Reviews RiverRun Film Festival 2014 Television The Criterion Collection The Thin Place To Stream or Not to Stream? Top 10s and Other Lists Toronto International Film Festival 2009 Toronto International Film Festival 2010 Toronto International Film Festival 2011 Toronto International Film Festival 2012 Toronto International Film Festival 2013 Toronto International Film Festival 2014 Uncategorized Video Virginia Film Festival 2011 Virginia Film Festival 2013 Women's Film Festival 2012

Select a Month February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Ecclesiastes teaches that there is a time for everything under heaven.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE