My own review, take it or leave it.

I watched Country Strong on the flight home from Dublin, after wanting to see it for awhile. I don't listen to country music often, but I do love the good ole music like Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels, and some Loretta Lynn. After reflecting on the movie the past couple of days, which has affected me a good bit, I've come to some conclusions. I haven't looked up other reviews or any kind of ratings, so this review is completely uninfluenced. I hope this all makes sense, I've had a hard time organizing my feelings with my thoughts. Spoilers ahead.

The movie is presented as a tale of a country music star, Kelly Canter, who has fallen like many famous stars do. She has a drinking problem, that caused her to take a bad fall during a show in Dallas, when she was 5 months pregnant, and lose her child. She's then sent to rehab, and that's where the movie begins.

There are many dynamics in this movie. The relationship between Kelly and her husband/manager, James, is only remnants of what it used to be. What happened to their child, caused by Kelly's excessive drinking with certain medications, has obviously fractured their love. James tries to contend with it, and is constantly dwelling on the past and the reasons that he fell in love with Kelly. In a number of places in the film he says "I loved you more than anyone else," using "love" in the past tense. James is living in the past, trying to recreate it by forcing Kelly back into what she used to do and trying to force her to be the way she was.

But Kelly has changed. She has also been broken. She seeks love with Beau, her "sponsor" at the rehab center, because she feels so guilty about losing her child that she practically bows down and kisses James's feet, begging for his forgiveness. James does still care, but he's too focused on the past.

Beau is focused on Kelly's future. He watches over her, cares about her almost like a father would, and tries to get her back on her feet in different ways from James.

Chiles Stanton is almost like the ghost of what Kelly was. Kelly sees in her everything that James and the public loved about her in the past, and she realizes more and more that that time in her life is gone, never to come back.

But she's torn between James and Beau. James pulling backward to the past, and Bo pushing forward to the future. Trying to please both, the anxiety causes Kelly to relapse time and time again.

They often say that someone who has made up their mind about suicide will become calm and collected, even happy. During the show at Dallas, suddenly Kelly is who she used to be. She's radiant, and ready to give them a show they won't forget. She visits Chiles to give her lots of stardom advice, she thanks Beau for helping her, and she goes on stage and becomes what she used to be.

Everyone is thrilled and partying. But Kelly has gone back to her dressing room, where she purposefully overdoses and dies.

The premise of the movie is not the revival of a star. It's the dynamic between love vs fame. Can love exist with fame, or is fame fatal to love? For James and Kelly, fame was fatal. Fame caused Kelly to begin drinking (presumably) which led to the death of their child and ultimately her death when she realized she could never had her "perfect" marriage back. Chiles and Beau's love bloomed during fame, but they are eye witnesses to what it is doing and has done to James and Kelly, and thus leave the fame behind for love.

This movie really moved me. It's so sad. At first I didn't understand why Kelly died in the end if she was supposed to make this comeback, but then I realized that she was the lesson.

(EDIT: I came back and read this years later and was appalled at my simple grammatical errors. I have fixed a few.)