Yesterday brought the release of the as-yet-not-much-talked-about film Country Strong, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Garrett Hedlund, and Leighton Meester. The plot is as follows:
A drama centered on a rising country-music songwriter (Hedlund) who sparks with a fallen star (Paltrow). Together, they mount his ascent and her comeback, which leads to romantic complications involving her husband/manager (McGraw) and a beauty queen-turned-singer (Meester).
This is one of those strange trailers that seems to promise good acting in relatively routine/corny writing (I really hate that title, though that may be because I thought it was titled Country SONG). From the character types to the subject matter, it's hard not to look at this as a female-oriented version of last year's severely blah Crazy Heart. That whole "Give me the bottle!" "No!" scene reeks of Oscar-begging, but the rest of the movie seems a little more subdued; hopefully it all looks better in context. Still, I'll probably see it for the performances; I miss seeing Gwyneth Paltrow in a strong-looking leading lady role, and this looks like it could be a decent enough vehicle for her to really show off those acting chops, something she can't do so much in the Iron Man series. We're still too far out to make real acting predictions, but with this officially on the table (it will receive a qualifying run in late December), best actress suddenly feels filled to the brim with potential contenders.
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