Country Strong 2010

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Ultimately it's too meandering and uneven to ever truly tug at your heart. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: Country Strong stumbles, and has some slack in its silences, but it takes its world, characters and songcraft seriously... Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: It's too bad that Ms. Feste didn't ditch the female victim bit and make a movie about a survivor. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: The movie isn't worth the scuffed cowgirl boots it's scooting around in. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "Country Strong" comes to spontaneous life from time to time, despite maudlin devices and manipulative set pieces. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: You watch "Country Strong" wishing you were watching "Crazy Heart," and wondering whether Gwyneth Paltrow read the script all the way through, and wishing Bridges would turn up to show the folks how it's done. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Feste captures the heightened reality of performing before a massive crowd, when audience expectations and JumboTron screens can blow delicate emotions up to monstrous proportions. The problem is everything else. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Several good performances are left adrift, as the characters roam from scene to scene, singing (quite well) as they go. Even as a sort of long-form music video, it's disjointed. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: "Country Strong" is a title that calls to mind a pickup truck. Only in a work of science-fiction would it suffice as a description of Gwyneth Paltrow. Read more

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: Both sincere and cynical in its view of country stardom, it makes you forgive all of its false notes simply because the talent plays them with conviction. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Shana Feste's screenplay seldom rises above the level of daytime TV; the only actor who triumphs over her trite dialogue is Tim McGraw in a nonsinging role as Paltrow's husband and manager. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The movie's well-acted. Almost everything else about "Country Strong" is weak. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Country Strong has a bit more to recommend it -- the music most of all -- but it's still a tough slog through emotional swamplands. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: If Feste actually believes that this show is country nirvana, she has no business making a country movie. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: If the point of Country Strong was to prove that Gwyneth Paltrow can sing, then mission accomplished. You don't need to sit through this two-hour melodrama to confirm that. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: [A] mixed bag of a country music comeback fable. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It shows that Gwyneth knows the spangly high-powered joys of country music. Too bad that in Country Strong, she's too busy acting out the hysterical and mostly nonsensical sorrows. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: If you like a spectacle, whoo boy, you have found your perfect match. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: Themes and cliches plucked from countless country lyrics fuel a thoroughly unconvincing show business story about a larger-than-life, crash-and-burn star and her unruly entourage of self-serving personalities. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: When the starting point is a world in which even the toughest guys wear their hearts on their sleeves, the trick for filmmakers is how to walk the line without getting stuck in the muck, and that is a problem the filmmaker hasn't yet figured out. Read more

Karina Longworth, L.A. Weekly: A rare specimen in our postironic age: legitimately unintentional camp. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Gwyneth Paltrow is a beautiful, gifted actress with a lovely singing voice, but she's never been more miscast than she is in Country Strong. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A movie that isn't smart enough to realize how stupid it really is. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: What saves "Country Strong" from drowning in its own tears are the leads, all four of whom imbue Feste's unabashedly cliched script with some genuine humanity. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Patsy Cline. Loretta Lynn. Gwyneth Paltrow. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: While Paltrow belts out the title anthem with conviction, it is the younger performers who sing more intimate, and moving, numbers that advance the story rather than merely stating it. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: While the melodrama is ladled on fast and thick at times, it is performed with sufficient conviction that we are drawn in rather than left on the outside laughing at it. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Catchy tunes, robust performances--but you can see every backstage-melodrama-cliche coming two scenes away. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: "Country Strong" is one of the best movies of 1957, and I mean that sincerely as a compliment. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Country Strong is dead on arrival. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: If you're going to make a bad film, at least make it short. Read more

Kevin C. Johnson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Doesn't come close to matching any of the legion of films set in the country music world, from "Coal Miner's Daughter" to "Walk the Line" to "Crazy Heart." Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: Feste struggles mightily to instill meaning and grandeur in Country Strong, but her initial efforts to sidestep cliche often result in confusion before she simply gives up and opts for melodrama. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The many tunes in Country Strong are of such astounding banality, it's as if they were written by caged chimps as they were driven through Nashville on the way to a medical research lab. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Unfortunately weak. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: Paltrow gives it her best but is so conspicuously doing country. We're meant to believe she has spent half her life staring into a vodka bottle, but she glows like she's just stepped out of a yoga retreat. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Most of the effort seems to have gone into the original music, which is pleasant but not memorable, and too little on creating believable, multidimensional characters. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: That rare ensemble piece in which all four principals are not only compellingly drawn but handled with an astute sense of dramatic balance. Read more

Jen Chaney, Washington Post: [A] disjointed drama filled with one-dimensional characters and melodrama so Lifetime movie-esque that it careens into unintentional comedy. Read more