Most viewers should recognize the simple story, the familiar tale of a broken-down entertainer past his prime, down on his luck, who's squandered his talent and his wealth, and now scratches out a living performing mostly from memory. In "Crazy Heart," Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a legendary country singer-songwriter who drives hundreds of miles all over the Southwest to play for small, devoted audiences who remember his better days. With a history of drinking and hell raising, a trail of four ex-wives, a son he's never known, and of course heartbreak aplenty, Blake's life resembles one of his - or anyone else's - country songs.

His current situation constitutes a saga of low-rent motels, diminishing paychecks, one-night stands that involve more than music, and enough bourbon to ease him over the rough spots. His first gig in the movie sums up the state of his career, a performance that attracts a crowd of older fans to a bowling alley, where he plays a set of his most beloved songs backed by a few young musicians and an obbligato of balls striking pins. Although the proprietor, following the instructions of Blake's agent, refuses him a tab at the bar, he assures him he can bowl for free, which doesn't exactly lift the singer's heart.

Performing in slightly better surroundings in Santa Fe, he grants and interview to his pianist's niece, Jane (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who writes about music for the local paper. Simultaneously (and obnoxiously) drinking, eating, and smoking, he initially resists her questions, handing her the usual tired boilerplate, but ultimately finds her attractive, intelligent, and sympathetic. She awakens some half-forgotten emotion in the sloppy, drunken, decayed has-been, and for unclear reasons she responds, which leads to something like a relationship.

Blake falls in love with both Jane and her little boy, Buddy, but her experience with inadequate men makes her wary of both his past and his present. Fully aware of this dependence on alcohol, she warns him not to drink in front of Buddy, which foreshadows the darkest moment and the nearest thing to a climax in the film.

IN addition to that personal story, "Crazy Heart" provides a kind of professional subplot, involving Bad Blake and a younger, fabulously successful country singer, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell, of all people). Although Tommy publicly praises Blake's songwriting, calls him his mentor, and pleads for more of his work, Bad refuses to write for him, to play for him, even to speak of him. They apparently quarreled over some unspecified matter in the past that Blake cannot forgive, but without much in the way of explanation they somehow make up when Blake agrees to serve as the opening act for a huge Tommy Sweet concert.

Somehow that entirely predictable, nicely linear story has captured the hearts of critics, festival judges (everybody wins something at one or another film festival), and all those hacks who constitute the voting members at the Golden Globes. Although allegedly a small, independent film, "Crazy Heart" actually exhibits a certain mainstream quality of naked manipulation, providing a little something for everyone - suffering, humor, sentiment, triumph over difficulties, redemption, and all that other heartwarming stuff that pleases both audiences and reviewers.

Jeff Bridges, allegedly the greatest underrated actor in American cinema (even he jokes about that nonsensical description) legitimately deserves the praise he has received for his interpretation of Bad Blake, but the role itself hardly demands a great deal of the actor. His character consists of a series of repeated gestures - aside from performing, he mumbles to Gyllenhaal, smokes incessantly, wraps himself around a quantity of bourbon, and vomits frequently.

According to rumor, Bridges wrote the songs he sings, which actually sound very much like all the other country songs anyone has heard, the usual lugubrious laments recited from a book of pain. The songs record sad journeys down lonesome roads, the loss of love, regret for past mistakes, all leavened with a rich mixture of self pity. When Gyllenhaal's Jane asks him where the songs come from, Blake replies, "Life, unfortunately," which pretty muc sums up the appeal of the music and the essence of the film itself.