Country Strong

Leilani Graham-Laidlaw, Staff Contributor

I had a bad day last week. A bang-your-head-on-the-wall, overdue assignments and a computer that went boom kind of day. So I figured Country Strong, the new country music film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Leighton Meester and Tim McGraw, would either exacerbate the big black cloud over my head or clear it up with the kind of cheese-ball goodness you’d expect from something centred around classic pedal steel guitar.

Let’s just say I was seeing big blue skies by the end of it.

While I loved the film, it does come with the caveat that I expected, nay, needed cheesy music-video scenarios and paper-thin plots. But while it made me feel good, it was not a feel-good film and the ending’s not quite happy. And that’s what elevates it beyond your usual guilty pleasure, bad-day movies.

There was some real grit anchoring the story line, though everything happened exactly as you’d expect. The alcohol and heartbreak stories about bad pasts were there, if tucked nicely behind the curtain as for any wide-release film. That was part of this films strength: it played across that line between public and private beautifully, with the characters’ dirty laundry flying high right next to the stage curtains. It felt like every shot was either wide-angle or close up, playing on the dilemma between the personal and public,  or “fame” and “love” as it was put.

Grand as all that sounds, and as well as it was all acted out (Paltrow was a knockout), it’s still a film based on country music, with all the requisite denim and drama. While you don’t need to like country to watch it, enjoying the music is half the movie. (Oh, and if you didn’t get the Loretta Lynn reference, go look up Coal Miner’s Daughter. Now.)

There were maybe 35 or 40 people there at an afternoon showing on opening day, and while I know Halifax ain’t exactly blue sky country, y’all would do good to go see it while you can. Or at least keep it in mind for those days when all you want is to curl up in bed, turn off the lights, and lose yourself in a bit of rhinestone-covered goodness.