Crazy Heart

Directed by Scott Cooper

Runtime: 112 min.

The Young Victoria

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée

Runtime: 100 min.

GIVING JEFF BRIDGES an award for playing drunken country-western singer Bad Blake is not a response but a capitulation to the Oscar bait that motivated this uninspired movie. So soon following The Wrestler, Bridges plays a “broken-down old piece of meat” who can’t sustain a relationship, skips out on his child—but sings.

Bridges has given superb performances in more original but unrewarded contexts. Here, he proves his skill by giving Bad Blake some Rip Torn orneriness, Merle Haggardness and even the authentic squint of the late great character actor James Gammon. But the gig is up when Bad Blake asks his estranged son, “Wanna to take down my number?” and the son answers, “I got your number.”

Emily Blunt’s naughty smile in The Young Victoria is the most impudent trait ever given a movie royal. It’s also a come-hither performance but the filmmakers don’t deliver on the tease; playing a rather drab monarch leaves no chance for Blunt’s sense of mischief to bloom. Unlike Keira Knightley in The Duchess, there’s no proto-feminist pretense; instead director Jean-Marc Vallée’s very pretty visual design reconciles the strain to make intriguing Queen Victoria’s early reign and faithful marriage with the fact of historical reverence. Playing a royal is a British actress’s rite of passage; Blunt’s own coronation hasn’t come yet.