Critic Reviews

Country Strong rides pretty high in the saddle, confident in the remarkably realized world Feste has created for her characters.

That rare ensemble piece in which all four principals are not only compellingly drawn but handled with an astute sense of dramatic balance.

Country Strong is a charmer that makes you forgive all of its false notes simply because the talent plays them with conviction.

Hedlund's got a hell of a voice, rotgut-ragged, and whether he's crooning or wooing, whatever he's selling, and no matter how cornpone, I'm buying.

Country Strong feels powerfully familiar.

Country Strong is a throwback, a pure, heartfelt exercise in '50s social melodrama.

The glaring weakness of Country Strong is James, underwritten and ambiguous, more like Kelly's pimp than her manager.

What saves Country Strong from drowning in its own tears are the leads, all four of whom imbue Feste's unabashedly clichéd script with some genuine humanity.

C&W lovers will lap it up - look out for some stellar Nashville cameos - and there's big-lunged uplift to see you through the cornball plot turns.

The film keeps throwing things at you: drunk scenes, adultery scenes, "All About Eve" rise-of-the-young-rival scenes. Yet despite the presence of some appealing actors, none of it quite adds up.