No tang in twang of insipid ‘Heartland’
Jessica Chastain earned an Emmy nod for her portrayal of country legend Tammy Wynette in the Showtime miniseries “George and Tammy,” but similar laurels are unlikely to follow her to Netflix’s lunkheaded “Heartland.” In it, she plays a Wynette-adjacent singer called out of forced retirement to do what the Nashville cops won’t: find her niece, Charlie Heart, a similarly feral star who’s gone missing and feared dead.
What qualifies Chastain’s Misty Jones as a sleuth ain’t exactly clear, but there she is, back in Nashville, the city that chewed up and spit her out after an assortment of heinous acts got her labeled an immoral pariah. It’s because she’s unwelcome that Misty has a heck of a time accessing potential witnesses, including seedy managers, crooked club owners and popular young studs who, like Charlie, spend as much time in the tabloids as they do in the recording studio.
It plays like a failed TV pilot, a “Columbo” meets “Monarch” mishmash that can’t decide whether it wants to be a tawdry exposé or a straight-up detective procedural. That it’s good at neither is the critical misstep in writer-director Shana Feste’s thinking, as she covers some of the same ground as her 2010 Gwyneth Paltrow flop, “Country Strong.” It even brings back that film’s Garrett Hedlund to play unctuous star-maker Roy Combs, a quasi-frenemy and seducer of Misty, who could use a meaningful roll in the hay after two decades of hard-drinking seclusion on her Georgia pecan farm.
Chastain is her usual badass, unafraid to mix it up with the thugs a mysterious Mr. Big has sicced on Misty to derail an investigation that could hurt a lot of powerful people. Such tactics include the obligatory highway incident in which her truck is run off the road and a lot of disingenuous fellers and gals stocking the pond with enough red herrings to feed an army. It’s all quite tedious. And Feste seems to know it, which might explain a ridiculous “Gone Girl”-type twist that sends her film in an entirely new direction, including a paternity reveal that’s less surprising than Feste thinks.
The result is a discombobulated mess that delivers more head-scratching than thrills as you endeavor to keep straight a plot that seems to take pride in being indecipherable. I suspect that distraction is by design, given how wan the writing and performances are, including Chastain, who appears as languid as we are watching her. Kudos, though, for her passable piano playing, which is far more convincing than her thin, reedy singing.
She’s simply overmatched in her duet with Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles as Winnie Jo Lean (love the name!), a co-conspirator in a deception in which Misty took the fall. We also hear a mellow tune from country upcomer Carter Faith, making her acting debut as the fussed-over Charlie Heart. Former Disney heartthrob Ross Lynch checks in as dreamboat Jace Jacobs, a chief suspect in Charlie’s disappearance.
No one is as unintentionally hilarious as the Oscar-nominated John Hawkes as Misty’s reclusive, Brian Wilson-ish ex, Clark, who now works naked from his bathtub in the middle of the living room. He’s symptomatic of the movie’s biggest issue: none of these characters, including Misty, feel real. They are manufactured types, and very old ones at that.
It’s not unreasonable to expect Chastain to be above this tripe and that of her other recent bomb, “Other Mommy.” I would suggest it’s time for a sit-down with her agent. As for her and “Heartland,” all I can say is please, please never play Misty for me again.
Movie review
Heartland
Rated: Not rated
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Garrett Hedlund, Carter Faith, John Hawkes and Ross Lynch
Director: Shana Feste
Writer: Shana Feste
Runtime: 112 minutes
Where: On Netflix beginning Nov. 13
Grade: D
