Reportedly based on Britney Spears, Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a country music star preparing for a comeback tour following a stint in rehab. Infatuated with idealistic heartthrob Beau (Garrett Hedlund), she demands that her manager-husband James (Tim McGraw) hire him as her opening act. To even the score, James also hires Chiles (Leighton Meester), a Country Barbie singer, whose looks are as Top 40-ready as her Taylor Swift-style croonings. This interesting love quadrangle could have led to a thoughtful examination of love, fame, neurosis and the danger facing fragile individuals constantly in the spotlight – but instead, corny songs substitute for meaningful dialogue, clichés replace sincerity and Paltrow cries her way through so much mascara that all I wanted to do was scrub her face clean with a kitchen towel.
Apart from a brief opening scene, where Paltrow cheekily improvises song lyrics while flirting with Beau (later repeating this trick in the, ahem, not-at-all manipulative setting of a children’s leukaemia ward), we’re given no hint of why Kelly is so revered. Paltrow sings well, as do Hedlund and Meester, but none of them are developed enough for you to care about their career trajectories. Paltrow wails, Hedlund soothes, Meester simpers, McGraw glowers: it’s all repeated in quicker succession during a sad montage, and there’s a sledgehammer-subtle metaphor involving a trapped baby bird.
Country Strong perpetuates every stereotype ladled out by those who don’t like country music: it’s melodramatic, indulgent and full of manufactured angst. But worse than that, it doesn’t even have the cheesy fun of a bad line-dancing song. Convinced of its own importance and emotional depth, Country Strong is unforgivably awful. Shana Fest: leave Britney (and the rest of us) alone!