Country Strong

Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw play husband and wife Kelly and James Canter in this story of a troubled country singing star.  When we first meet them, Kelly is in rehab, flirting with Beau (Garret Hedlund), a young employee at the facility.  Beau also happens to be a country singer and songwriter.  James is taking Kelly out of rehab, because he's anxious for her to get back on the road.

We soon learn that Kelly is not only an alcoholic, but that a fall she took at a show, because of her drunkenness, caused the death of her unborn child.  Needless to say, this incident was bad for her career.  James, who is also her manager, has one goal in mind - to get her going on a comeback tour, to prove to her fans that she is "ok" now.  It soon becomes evident that she left rehab way too soon. Sadly, their relationship is so distant, that he cant see that its the career that's killing her.  All he can think about is saving her image to save her career. 

At Kelly's request, James reluctantly, asks Beau to join them on as the opening act on the tour.  They also take young beauty-pageant-queen turned-country-singer, Chiles Stanton (Leighton Meester) as another opening act.  As you can guess, all the relationships get a little complicated.

Kelly needed to dull the pain she felt in her life, and drinking was how she did it.  It seemed that the life of a star became too much for her.  James didn't seem to care that she wasn't "all better".  He just wanted her to look as if she was, so that her career could carry on.  Kinda reminded me of a scene in the movie Coal Miner's Daughter, where Loretta Lynn - about to have a nervous breakdown on stage - said,  "Patsy always said, 'Little girl, you've got to run your life'...but I fear my life is running me".

Country Strong was slow at times, and a bit predictable.  But it was an OK movie with good acting and good entertaining music. A good home DVD movie.