You ain’t gonna catch traces of Waylon Jennings or Townes VanZant in the brand of songs young whippersnappers Leighton Meester or Garrett Hedlund serve up like confetti in Country Strong, a semi-strong vehicle for the acting prowess of Gwyneth Paltrow. The film scatters verbal references to these and other country icons–Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn (Paltrow’s character, country superstar Kelly Canter names her pet infant bird after Lynn–a young chirper stolen out from under it’s Mom after Kelly “waited 20 minutes” for her to show up). Problem is, the only talent in the film who’d be capable of approximating these name-dropped legends, Tim McGraw (here playing Kelly’s manager/husband) doesn’t utter a single song!
While McGraw has acted before and Paltrow has sung on film (“Duets”), here it’s over-ambitious casting. Though adequate within their characters’ limited emotional range and capable of cutesy tete-a-tetes, Hedlund (“Tron: Legacy”) and Meester (“Gossip Girl”) hardly evoke the country hall-of-fame. And Paltrow, despite a nuanced performance, is so saddled with such hyperbolic over-production on her musical numbers, I swear I heard her pet bird cringe. So it’s actors-as-musicians and musician-as-actor, mixing it up in a film that stirs but; doesn’t blend the elements of concert film and addiction-going-to-rot showbiz biopic. 
Had the film done more work in building and explaining characters and events, we might have something more than a climax sadly unworthy of our empathy.And you can bet your Waylon and Merle and Townes, they’d all die laughing at what’s-all-this gritty-as-jello honky tonk.
Four out of 10 (and I’d hate to think what number it would be without Paltrow.)