Country Strong

Movie: Country Strong

Cast:    Gwyneth Paltrow        (Kelly Canter)

            Tim McGraw             (James Canter)

            Garrett Hedlund         (Beau Hutton)

            Leighton Meester      (Chiles Stanton)

Genre: Drama, Country music

Synopsis: Kelly Canter is an award winning country music superstar.  Her manager, James, is also her husband.  After Kelly had a miscarriage brought on by a drunken fall from a stage, she went into rehab.  While in rehab, she started having an affair with a talented up-and-coming country singer, Beau.  James pulls her out of rehab a month early to put her back on tour.  For an opening act, James brings along a female singer, Chiles, that he seems to have designs on.  Kelly counters by insisting Beau also be an opening act.

With the first concert, it is clear Kelly was not ready for a tour.  The rest of the movie follows her decaying relationship with James and her relationship with Beau.  Meantime, Beau discovers that Chiles is not the empty-headed beauty queen he that initially thought.

My two cents: An interesting movie.  Tim McGraw did an excellent job of portraying a really unlikeable character.  Gwyeth Paltrow seems to have legitimately good singing chops. O have never been a big fan of her, but I have to admit I was impressed with Gwyenth Paltrow’s portrayal of a star who is in emoptionally very fragile and just unable to cope with her life.  The two I most liked, though, were Garret Hedlund and Leighton Meester.  I had never heard of either of them, but I thought they both brought a lot of depth to their characters.  The development of the relationship between their characters was by far my favorite part of the movie.  I am not a country music fan . . . but seeing a few movies like this could change my mind.  I really enjoyed just about all of the songs in the movie.

Bottom line . . . worth seeing.

[13]