Never Hire Your Husband to Be Your Manager

I love this film because of the actors, the storyline, the message, and the music.
But Kelly Canter was NOT Country Strong. She was country broken. I found myself feeling how TIRED Kelly Canter was, and her husband/manager James just wasn't listening...to anybody...least of all Kelly. Like many posters have pointed out about the storyline relationship between Kelly and James, unless you've lived with someone struggling with addiction, it's hard to understand. But what is NOT hard to understand is someone who falls off a stage mid-performance, miscarries, and goes to rehab does not need to come out of rehab to rehab their professional reputation and resurrect their career before they are on stable footing. Stress, anxiety, other peoples' expectations all add to an addicts' triggers to use again. They are weak and small inside. So what I learned from this film is that it is a mistake to have your husband as your manager because he is not objective. The relationship between James and Kelly was more like Father-Child than Husband-Wife. It made me crazy. She just needed someone to take care of her, like a lost child. She was so wounded. I think Gwyneth did a great job. Her accent was perfect, and she is just such a natural actor. I've heard her sing before with Huey Lewis in a movie they did together, so I knew she could sing. She doesn't have a powerful voice, but she has a pretty one. Also, I loved the scene with Travis, and felt the chemistry between Gwyneth and Tim McGraw for the first time. It was a bittersweet scene. In the scene where she slaps him, she begged him to see her as she "was before." He never could. Neither could the media. Very painful to watch, because it seems to be steeped in truth. Garret Hedlund was just a pleasure to watch, and really upstaged Gwyneth because he inhabited the body of a country western singer, and has such a deep, rich singing and speaking voice of his own. He's a good actor too. Never too much or too little. Leighton Meester played her character just perfectly. I could see her competing in a beauty pageant. She was ambitious, yet hesitant. Her singing wasn't all that
impressive, but she carried the tune. Tim McGraw was just snarky enough to be
irritating as the pompous and entitled James Canter, but showed moments of deep pain. I think he did a good job. But he needed to let his wife rest.