Uh, Crazy Heart is based on a novel published in 1989 or 19 years before the release of The Wrestler. Director and co-writer Scott Cooper actually WAS trying to make a biopic about Merle Haggard but had trouble securing all of the life rights and then turned to Thomas Cobb's novel as a source which was inspired by the down and out careers of various country musicians (Cobb was a music journalist in Arizona when he began writing Crazy Heart). If anything Crazy Heart (AND The Wrestler) for that matter owe debts (that I'm sure the filmmakers/writers would acknowledge) to the 1983 film Tender Mercies. It stars Robert Duvall as a once successful country musician struggling with alcohol addiction and seeking a new life with a woman and her son while also looking for forgiveness and closure with his ex-wife and a daughter he hasn't seen in years.

So, no, Crazy Heart ISN'T The Wrestler Part 2.

No, I haven't seen this movie, but I plan to. Those crazies at the NY Times love it, call it a masterpiece, but jeez, what do they know? As to classic themes of the genre called "tragedy", yeah, like man, those Greek plays, those operas, those centuries of literature, like those themes are so repetitive..... , excuse the sarcasm, I am flummoxed by the critic. I say, ignore this person, who indicates neither cinematographic nor literary sense of history, nor understanding of the unfathomable power of archetype, yet has a job critiquing film. But I respect Mr. Caraeff's right to an opinion. Yet the human drama is repetitive, art is expected to inform, deepen, and enrich through a more metaphorical sense of what the French call bulot dodos (work, sleep), reference to the grind of the Rat Race. The Rat Race which one might flee briefly in darkened halls of flickering image called movie houses. Sex is repetitive, eating is repetitive, but can be so mystical, so fun, so alive. Mr. Caraeff, why is this? I never get tired of stories about redemption, they uplift my spirit.