Life’s rough for Bad Blake, the erstwhile country music star Jeff Bridges plays in “Crazy Heart” — he’s got a quartet of divorces, very few pennies to his name and a codependent relationship with a bottle of whiskey. This guy’s a country western song personified.

But in a world where the country music fanbase has gravitated toward Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell, better as a country star than you would’ve ever expected), a Rascal Flatts-style country douche bag, there’s not much room left for Bad, whose tour itinerary consists of bowling alleys and dive bars. He shows up drunk, maybe bags a woman and moves on to the next podunk town.

The formula changes when Bad makes a two-night stop in New Mexico, and grants an interview to small-time reporter Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Jean seems to be quite unfamiliar with her newspaper’s ethics policies, and ignites a love affair with Bad, who hasn’t completely lost it among his slovenliness.

With things looking up in his personal life, Bad gets a shot in the arm of his career as well, with former protégé Sweet granting him an opening slot on his tour, and the promise of more collaboration to come.

“Crazy Heart” is essentially “The Wrestler” take two, but with an added dose of Oscar-bait triteness. Bad Blake fits neatly within the washed-up archetype, but beyond the sloppy demeanor and alcoholism, there’s little internal conflict for the film to hang its hat on. This forces writer/director Scott Cooper to reach for increasingly manufactured external conflicts — a car wreck, a lost child — to send Bad into lower depths of despair before he can build him back up again.

Cooper — making his directorial debut here — also doesn’t do the film any favors with his lackluster direction and John Axelrad’s economical editing ruins any chance for the film to achieve what it really needs — a few unflinching looks into the face of a broken man. These guys are in far too great of a hurry.

Fortunately, our guide through the tepidness is Bridges, who imbues the character with the warmth, hurt and longing that the script stopped short of, and has a great chance of adding his first Oscar to his shelf next to his recent Golden Globe statue for the film. Farrell too makes a good impression in his brief screen time, and both come across plenty convincing doing their own singing throughout the film.

Elsewhere, Gyllenhaal is underwhelming per her norm and Robert Duvall gives us more of the same ‘ol Robert Duvall-ness as Bad’s fishing buddy. The music by Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett is passable enough, but doesn’t make much of an impression in a film that doesn’t require it to.

“Crazy Heart” achieves its modest stature thanks solely to the strength of Bridges’s performance. Otherwise it’s simply a pie in the sky Hollywood comeback story where alcoholism is defeated with a flick of the wrist and there’s nothing but blue skies over every horizon. Cue the rainbow.

“Crazy Heart” opens today at Quail Springs AMC in Oklahoma City.