If Mickey Rourke's Ram played music, he would've been Jeff Bridge's Bad. Or if the Coen Brothers' Dude (also played by Bridges) learned the guitar instead of bowling, he would've been Bad. But the thing is that Crazy Heart provides more than moralistic story; here hope actually seems to, well, abide.

Otis "Bad" Blake (Bridges) has lived a life of narcissistic tendencies, singing songs that he's written and traveling around the country seducing people with his tunes. He's been married four times and bedded plenty of other women, but his life is an empty concoction of sex, booze, and nicotine. He's alienated his proteges, and his son, and his life is a stupor of regret that he spends most of his days denying. But then along comes Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who falls for this man thirty years her elder, and her young son, and his life is changed forever.

Bad has done his fair share of bad stuff, both by commission and omission, but the breaking into his life by Jean causes the possibility of repentance to catch up to him. Yes, he also crashes his truck (ending up in the hospital), gets told to quit alcohol, booze, and fast food, and nearly loses Jean's son, but it's Jean's combination of openness to him without being snowed by his charm that forces him to reflect on his life. The difference between this and DarrenAronofsky's drama The Wrestler is that the messages of change actually seem to penetrate the mind and soul of this aging "gunslinger."

I'm all for movies about redemption/resurrection, but I'm a bit jaded by Bridges. Now, granted I don't know the full body of work given Bridges' forty-year career, but from what I know, "acting" seems subjective. How can you notice much difference between Bridge's character in The Big Lebowski orThe Men Who Stare At Goats? It always seems to me that Bridges is playing someone slightly stoned, a bit off center, and completely unmoved by the world around him! It's just that here, surrounded by a fine soundtrack, as balanced by Gyllenhaal, the role suits him and shows how it could culminate in the Best Actor award. (I'd still have voted for The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner!)

Crazy Heart is the sort of movie that remains open-ended enough to start good discussions about our own shortcomings, addictions, and demons that make us crazy, drive us to self-medicate, and separate us from the relationships that we need to be healthy individuals. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from Bad: what not to do, how not to act, and, yes, when we fall down, how to get back up.