Country Strong is the female Crazy Heart: a once-successful country crooner hits the bottle, destroys relationships and then sings their way to redemption. But from what we can gather from the Country Strong trailer, that film is more about the pressures of success and fame and competing with Leighton Meester than Crazy Heart was. The film’s writer and director, Shana Feste, says that she based Gwyneth Paltrow‘s substance-abusing country star on Britney Spears and Michael Jackson, whose death occurred as she was finishing her screenplay.
Feste says, “We build these artists and celebrate them, then at the first sign of weakness, we rally around their downfall. Then we want to build them back up for a comeback. How difficult to live life like that in public.” She drew from real-life performers in order to “present these characters as messy, complicated and conflicted.” And despite drawing from Britney’s life, there’s no sign of Kevin Federline anywhere in Country Strong, unfortunately. Country Strong is in theaters tomorrow.
[Photo: Sony Pictures]
