Country Strong

"Country Strong", a surprisingly good film (even if you live in California and don't happen to like country music). Starring Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man), Tim McGraw (The Blind Side), Garrett Hedlund (TRON: Legacy) and Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl), "Country Strong" succeeds in doing exactly what it sets out to do; that is make a dramatic film about country music that is also entertaining. I know a lot of critics will not agree with me, but in the midst of the awards season this is the one film, not nominated for a big time award, that is worth spending your money on. Side Note: Oh, and if you're only reading this review to find out if Gwyneth Paltrow can sing, the answer is yes she can. But if you had seen "Duets", then you already knew that she could. Synopsis: A story that follows fallen country music superstar Kelly Canter (Paltrow) as she is released from rehab and attempts a comeback concert. There is also another, and all around better, storyline that follows the rise of two up and coming country music artists Beau Hutton and Chiles Stanton (Hedlund and Meester), as they try to find out what path to take through the harsh and unforgiving world of the country music industry. Yes, "Country Strong" may seem a bit to predictable for some and yes, it does lag a bit in the middle of the film (mostly pertaining to Paltrow's scenes), but it does redeem itself with a vengeance in the final 30 minutes of the film. The storyline is really well thought out, the character development here is potent and the acting (including the singing), for the most part, is excellent. Unequivocally the one actor to take note of in this film is Hedlund, who steals the show with his performance of a country boy/country music purist. His chemistry on screen with just about everyone including the microphone is so authentic, that whenever he is on-screen he literally makes the movie better. Any and all issues I have with this film surprisingly fall directly on the performance of Paltrow. She plays an aging alcoholic Country superstar with as much heart as she can muster, but overall she is sadly uninteresting to watch for most of the film. Final Thought: "Country Strong" is currently getting raked through the mud by critics for its simplistic storyline, but let me tell you this: anyone (and I mean anyone) who is a fan of Country music will undoubtedly love this film. And even if the Country twang is not your bang, this is a strong enough drama to keep you in your seat. This is no "Crazy Heart" (so no nominations to be found here), but "Country Strong" is still entertaining enough for me to strongly recommend.

My wife & I went to the screening of this movie (7/15/10)not knowing a lot about it. We just knew it had country music in it. Not being country music fans we were not sure how we would like it. We both thought it was a great movie. The acting, story & music was excellent.I am not able to go into too much detail abut the movie yet. But will when the trailers are released. I believe you will enjoy this movie greatly! It is hard to compare it with other movies I have seen but I guess you would call it a Drama / romance movie. I think it will appeal to people in their 20's and up. Maybe a date movie? This movie is NOT just for people that like Country Music. As I stated I am not a Country music fan but came out thinking I would not mind owning the soundtrack. It is a must see when it comes out in Dec. You will not be disappointed

As a relatively new fan of country music, I must say I was disappointed in this movie. It had its moments, but overall I cannot recommend it. The clumsy, disconnected screenplay was probably the worst aspect of the film as it gave the actors little to work with. There didn't seem to be much continuity to the film, but just a bunch of scenes thrown together. Aside from her singing the title song, there was nothing about the main character (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) that was remotely strong, and the ending was hardly inspiring in that regard. I cringed through the first half of the movie, which seemed to go overboard in portraying her flaws and failures, and wondered how much lower she would get before she turned things around. It was quite depressing, with no "payoff" at the end to make it worthwhile.

What the movie does have is some pretty good music. Paltrow, Garrett Hedlund, and Leighton Meester all sang quite well and almost made this movie worth seeing. Hedlund gave the best acting performance, and Meester wasn't bad. But I was quite disappointed in Tim McGraw's effort and feel it was the weakest of his budding career. I don't know if it was because he was playing an insensitive jerk as opposed to the nice guys of his previous roles, but he seemed strained and unnatural. And as well as Paltrow sang, and as much as I have enjoyed previous work by her, she was unconvincing in her portrayal of a country superstar (limited in part by the poor script, as noted earlier). The charisma just wasn't there.

Seeing a movie like this makes me appreciate well-written and well-acted movies all the more. They have a unifying theme that takes you somewhere and ties things together at the end (unless, of course, there is to be a sequel). "Country Strong" just didn't have what it takes, but ending up looking more like a direct-to-video film. It should have been titled "Country Pathetic."

I loved this movie. It wasn't what I expected at all, but I really enjoyed it and did tear up a couple of times. I have to say I am very surprised by the harsh reviews by critics and some of the users on here!

The movie is a bit too long at almost 2 hours. I think a couple of the acting scenes were repetitive, but I am glad they did not cut any of the music they had. There is a LOT of music but the actors all pull it off quite well, with some of the songs actually being recognizable as real country songs if you are familiar with the genre.

I must admit I am a huge country music fan and I like all country, not just the newer pop stuff. So take my review knowing that. However, I did take 3 people with me to the advance screening and 2 of them listen to NO country music. All 4 of us thought the movie was great. Three of us cried.

I think the previews are marketing the movie all wrong. It looks like it will be an uplifting film that shows us the bad stuff in the beginning, then maybe a bump or two, then everybody winds up happy and "Country Strong." This is not the case at all.

It is a sad look at addiction but I think more realistic than someone coming out of rehab and everything being sunshine and lollipops. The characters are all flawed, with perhaps Beau being the only one who comes out in a mostly positive light, but even he has his issues and is far from perfect.

It also looks like Gwyneth is the only lead in the previews, but all 4 major characters have quite a large amount of time on screen and I think Beau has the same (or maybe even more) screen time as Gwyneth. I had never heard of this actor (had no clue he has the lead in TRON) and I came home to look him up immediately because I thought surely he was a real up and coming country singer.

Gwyneth's voice is really good, and if Garrett or Leighton ever made a country album, I would buy it. Tim doesn't sing in the movie but has a song on the soundtrack, but that was the way he wanted it and I respect him for that. This was the first movie of Tim's where I did forget at least a couple of times that I was looking at "THE" Tim McGraw. He was fine in Blindside, but it was a small role.

If you have a passionate hatred for country, I do not think you will enjoy the movie because there is a lot of singing in it. However, you do not need to love country as I do to enjoy it. If you can so much as tolerate it or accept the singers as being talented, I think you'll be fine.

I plan to buy the soundtrack, but wish it had more from Garrett and Leighton because they each sang a lot more than 1 song in the movie!

I feel like this movie has potential to be good. The actors are obviously trying but the writer/director just doesn't deliver which completely throws off the intentions of each character. What I mean is, it's bad enough that the music is astonishingly boring, but that no character is given any development makes the movie even worse. Therefore Gwyneth Paltrow comes off as whiny because why she started drinking is never explained, Garrett Hedlund and Leighton Meester appear pretentious because they have no history to explain their on-off minor rivalry, and Tim McGraw appears to just be bossy because there's no push for him to make Gwyneth Paltrow's character a more popular star. I feel no sympathy for the characters because there is no real story behind any of them which makes the long scenes feel even longer. When something thin is being stretched out beyond it's limit, it shows by either becoming looser or ripping apart. This movie doesn't completely rip apart, but it comes terribly close (emphasis on "terrible"). I do not recommend this movie to anyone, especially country music fans.