Country Strong

Shana Feste's Country Strong badly wants to be about the difference between the manufactured pop/country of star Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the rootsy, personal, "authentic" songs of Kelly's lover and opening act Beau (Garrett Hedlund). Kelly is taken from rehab early by her manager/husband James (Tim McGraw, loudly hitting the ceiling of his acting talent) to start a tour that will restore Kelly's reputation after a drunken fall on stage caused her to lose the couple's baby. We're primed for a story of creative rebirth and marital reconnection, except that's not a story Feste has any idea how to tell. Kelly is almost comically out of control from the start and there's never any sense that she's truly connected to her fans. I don't know if Feste didn't want to offend the movie's intended audience, but the relationship between Kelly and Beau is circled around and never comes to the forefront of the story. Kelly is a brand, while Beau and rising star Chiles Stanton (Leighton Meester) write their own songs and represent "real" country. A movie about the characters played by Hedlund the winning Meester might have had some charm, but Feste can't find the center of her own script and the ending is absurd. Country Strong is an insult to the both to the people it was made for and to the music it purports to celebrate.