“Country Cliche”

COUNTRY STRONG is the story of a six-time, Grammy-winning, country-music superstar who starts off the movie in rehab for alcohol addiction, and thus the audience thinks, “So, what else is new?”

Unfortunately, that comment can be applied to the whole movie, as well.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Kelly Canter, and we are told that she fell off the stage the year before in Dallas at her previous concert when she was drunk, disorderly, and pregnant.

Well, Kelly has become close friends with one of her sponsors in rehab, Beau Hutton, who is also a country-music singer and songwriter, but he is happy to perform just at local bars and clubs.

Then James shows up to get Kelly out of rehab a month early in order to start performing again. James is Kelly’s husband and manager, he is played by Tim McGraw, whose name country-music fans might recognize, and yet he is the only experienced professional singer who doesn’t sing any songs in the movie.

At one point, Kelly says to James, “I’m sorry about Dallas. We should talk about it sometime.”

Unfortunately, they don’t talk about it, and if they had, this might have been a better movie, but at least the music is pretty good.

Country Strong MovieKelly wants to give Beau a break and let him be the opening act for her comeback tour, but James–in addition to being suspicious about Beau–has a new singer in mind to open for Kelly, a young and pretty beauty winner named Chiles Stanton, who is so new in the business that she gets stage fright and freezes up during her chance to audition for James.

Well, you can see that this story is headed for a love triangle if ever there was one, or more likely a love rectangle, and a square one at that.

So, there are the obligatory stops and starts and stops and restarts on Kelly’s comeback tour that James has lined up for her, which of course either helps or hurts the chances of Beau and Chiles to become successful and fan favorites.

In addition, there are the obligatory advances and setbacks in the love aspects of the characters, not unlike what the stories of most country songs say in music.

COUNTRY STRONG is more like “Country Cliche,” but at least the music is pretty good.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”