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Metascore
30 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangThat rare ensemble piece in which all four principals are not only compellingly drawn but handled with an astute sense of dramatic balance.
- 70Boxoffice MagazineAmy NicholsonBoxoffice MagazineAmy NicholsonCountry Strong is a charmer that makes you forgive all of its false notes simply because the talent plays them with conviction.
- 63USA TodayClaudia PuigUSA TodayClaudia PuigCountry Strong feels powerfully familiar.
- 63Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertCountry Strong is a throwback, a pure, heartfelt exercise in '50s social melodrama.
- 58Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe 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.
- 50Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyLos Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyCountry Strong is Feste's second film, and she infuses it with an earnestness that swings between too too much and appealing, the same earnestness that swamped her filmmaker debut last year with "The Greatest."
- 50Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMy God is this script predictable. Each relapse and betrayal shows up announced, and then announced again, a little louder, by the dialogue equivalent of an aggravating doorman.
- 40Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzArizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSeveral good performances are left adrift, as the characters roam from scene to scene, singing (quite well) as they go. Even as a sort of long-form music video, it's disjointed.
- 30The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttFeste, who has one previous effort as a writer-director, last year's "The Greatest," fails here to do the most basic thing -- give an audience a rooting interest, or any interest at all, in these four troubled people.
- 30L.A. WeeklyL.A. WeeklyCountry Strong is sillier - and more tone-deaf - than Paltrow's advice website, GOOP.