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Fandango Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw. more current releases » Search movie showtimes and buy one-minute movie reviews tickets. Country Strong still playing BY ROGER EBERT / January 5, 2011 about us "Country Strong" is one of The Adjustment Bureau Another Year About the site » the best movies of 1957, Barney's Version and I mean that sincerely cast & credits Battle: Los Angeles Site FAQs » as a compliment. Lee Biutiful Kelly Gwyneth Paltrow Remick would have been Blue Valentine Contact us » terrific in this film — as James Tim McGraw Casino Jack good as Gwyneth Paltrow Beau Garrett Hedlund Cedar Rapids Email the Movie is. We live now in more Chiles Leighton Meester Certifiably Jonathan Answer Man » fraught times, with Natalie Winnie Marshall Chapman Certified Copy Portman mentally Cold Weather The Company Men disemboweling herself for Screen Gems presents a film on sale now Country Strong her art while slipping into written and directed by Shana madness. And I admire Drive Angry 3D Feste. Running time: 111 minutes. Portman, and she will The Eagle Rated PG-13 (for thematic deserve her anticipated Even the Rain The Green Hornet Oscar nomination. But elements involving alcohol abuse and some sexual content). Hall Pass "Country Strong" is a Hidden Love throwback, a pure, heartfelt Printer-friendly » The Housemaid exercise in '50s social E-mail this to a friend » I Am Number Four melodrama, using such I Will Follow stock elements as a The Illusionist Buy now » depressed heroine, her Inspector Bellamy manipulating husband, an Ip Man 2 ambivalent Other Man, and Jane Eyre tapping her toe impatiently in the wings, young Eve Harrington eager Just Go With It to swoop in and gnaw the heroine's courage from her bones. Kaboom Limitless It was shot in a straightforward meat-and-potatoes style, beautifully The Lincoln Lawyer filmed by John Bailey. It takes place in what could be the Texas of Louder Than a Bomb "The Last Picture Show," except for some performances in a modern Loveless The Mechanic arena. It stars Paltrow as Kelly Canter, a troubled country singer who Buy now » My Dog Tulip has been released from alcohol rehab too soon. Real-life country No Strings Attached music star Tim McGraw plays James, the man Kelly married when Of Gods and Men they were in love, and now stays on as her controlling manager. Paul Garrett Hedlund is Beau Hutton, a singer who "just likes to play Poetry music for people" and doesn't care about money. And Leighton Rango Meester as Chiles Stanton, a former Miss Dallas who dreams of Red Riding Hood stardom. The Rite Sanctum Beau and Chiles. Man, are those '50s names. The plot does not Season of the Witch Strongman Buy now » neglect the tragic loss of Kelly's unborn child; while pregnant and drunk, Kelly fell from a stage. Nor Beau and James, who both fool Take Me Home Tonight around with Chiles, and both are probably in love with Kelly. After Unknown Vidal Sassoon: The Movie Beau (apparently) resigns his day job as an orderly at Kelly's rehab Waste Land institution, these three people move in unison across Texas on a tour The Way Back route scattered with emotional land mines. Kelly rides in the big customized bus. The rest bring up the rear in an old van. more current releases » It is a given that Kelly is a great star. Beau is a damn fine country on dvd singer, too good to play in bars that can't even afford enough extras Buy now » to make up a crowd. Chiles is a promising singer but an emotional new on dvd basket case because of deep insecurities left over from childhood. She's got herself one of those pinched-up fearful faces with her red lips all forced into a perfect bow, and hair too stiff. She's like a The Times of Harvey Milk (3/22) caricature of mama's little beauty pageant contestant until at the end, Hereafter (3/15) wow, she scrubs off the makeup and shampoos that hairspray off Inside Job (3/8) her hair, and we realize Leighton Meester is a beauty and not a Four Lions (3/8) Around a Small Mountain (3/8) victim of a cosmetics counter makeover. Love and Other Drugs (3/1) Just Before Nightfall (3/1) Buy now » Now it may seem that I am finding fault with "Country Strong." Quite Burlesque (3/1) the opposite. We must see a movie for what it is, not for what we Megamind (2/25) think another film might have been. This is a movie into which Lee Memento (2/22) Remick and Rock Hudson and Sandra Dee would have slipped without shoehorns, and Douglas Sirk would have known where to more new on dvd » march them. Its emotions are strong and visible. Its motives are coming on dvd clear. Its music performances are so good, we wish they lasted longer. Gwyneth Paltrow is so beautiful and is just really so nice that she brings enormous sympathy to her role. And Hedlund's Beau All Good Things (3/29) would do anything for a woman — or two women, in this case. Fair Game (3/29) Buy now » more coming on dvd » I eat this stuff up. Don't get all on your high horse. Big emotions are sprayed across the somewhat crowded quarters of a limited number great movies on dvd of small sets, punctuated by second-unit drive-bys and grizzly good ol' boys filling out the frame. The only truly realistic character in the Shoah (12/29) movie has hardly a line. That would be the tall, middle-age female Santa Sangre (1/25) who's apparently Kelly's wardrobe woman and follows her everywhere like those well-paid and not indifferent support people in more great movies on dvd » the lives of stars. She sees everything and knows everything and Buy now» keeps her mouth shut, which is what you want. She's got your back.

Another thing that places this movie in the 1950s milieu is its understanding of alcoholism. It thinks being drunk comes on people in sudden spurts, like a sneezing fit, and goes away when the plot needs it to. Kelly will be waving a vodka bottle at one moment and morosely pondering at the next. She (Paltrow, that is) has a lovely scene where she coaches young Chiles on what she needs to know about sweat stains, high heels and love.

Buy now» Beau tells James his mistake was to take Kelly out of rehab before the rehab was finished. James is not a man of deep insights into drinking or sobriety. Three days after Kelly gets out of rehab, Beau catches her choking down pills in the dressing room. He confronts James about this. "I know!" he says. "I put them in her pillbox myself! They're not dangerous unless she drinks!"

I know I didn't hear you say that, James. Tell me you didn't.

Buy now»

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