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Country Strong | 2011 | PG-13 | - 6.4.4

After a rising country music star (Garrett Hedlund) begins a relationship with a country music superstar (Gwyneth Paltrow) while she is in rehab, they begin to tour together. Continuing to be emotionally unstable, she mounts her comeback along with a newcomer beauty queen (Leighton Meester), but romantic entanglements and unresolved conflicts threaten to derail her once again. Also with Tim McGraw, Marshall Chapman and Lari White. Directed by Shana Feste. [1:52]

SEX/NUDITY 6 - A man and a woman kiss passionately, they are then seen shirtless (the woman is wearing a bra and the man's bare chest is visible) holding one another and they are later seen lying in bed together, implying that they had sex.
 It is implied that a man and a woman had just showered together; they are seen kissing passionately while wearing towels -- the woman's towel is wrapped around her chest and the man's is around his waist.
 A man discovers another man and a woman having sex: the woman is sitting on a man's lap, facing him (she is wearing a bra and skirt and the man is shirtless) and the man shouts at the other man, who stands up (his bare back and chest are briefly visible) and runs off; he then takes the woman and puts a sweater on her.
 A man's bare chest is visible as he stands wearing a towel around his waist in front of a woman; the woman kisses him passionately. The cleavage of a woman is visible as she lies on her stomach on a bed; she is wearing a silky nightgown as a man watches her. Women are seen on multiple occasions wearing very short, cleavage-exposing dresses. A woman dances on stage in front of a large crowd while singing slightly suggestive lyrics ("shake that thing") and wearing a short dress.
 A woman holds a man's hands, she places her hands on his shoulders and his on hers, and then tells him not to have sex with anyone but her; the man agrees and asks if she has sex with another man, she says that it is different and that they do not even kiss with open mouths, and the man and the woman then kiss. Men and women are seen kissing on multiple occasions. A man kisses a woman on the top of the head.
 A man and a woman lie in bed together, the woman implies she wants to initiate sex with the man, she puts her hand on the man's shoulder and tells him she had just gotten a Brazilian wax; the man tells her he had taken a sleeping pill and would see her in eight hours.
 A woman implies to a man that she had been carrying on an affair with another man. A man wearing a shirt and boxers asks a woman why she is wearing a towel and she tells him she had "gotten dirty" with another man and had to take a shower. A man jokingly tells another man and a woman to "just sleep together already." A man tells another man that he had been "sleeping" with a woman's friend. A woman makes a rude remark to a man that he will "check out" another woman. A woman asks a man if he thinks another woman is pretty and the man tells her that he thinks she is pretty.
 A man and a woman are seen in their underwear (the man in boxers with his bare chest visible and the woman in bra and underpants) after the man jokes they should have a "bikini competition" and takes off his clothes; the woman follows suit and takes off her shirt and shorts and moments later shouts at the man to put on his pants as she covers herself quickly.
 Men and women are seen dancing, with their arms wrapped around one another. A man wraps his arms around a woman.

VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - A woman is seen lying, lifeless, on a sofa (we see a variety of empty pill bottles next to her), a man shakes her body, and we then see the man in a hospital speaking to a doctor and it is implied that the doctor tells him that the woman has died; the man collapses and we later see a casket being lowered into the ground in a cemetery.
 A man grabs a woman by the arm and tries to pull her up from the ground, the woman punches the man in the mouth, and he holds his mouth in pain (we see no blood) while the woman apologizes. A man punches another man in the face and the man spins from the impact (we see no blood).
 A man grabs a bottle from a woman's hand and slams it against a wall, shattering it. A woman opens a box and we see a baby doll covered in red paint with "baby killer" written on its chest and the woman cries.
 On two occasions we hear a television reporter discuss how a woman had tripped and fallen 10 feet from a stage while drunk and five months pregnant; it is implied the woman had a miscarriage. A woman cries on two occasions when discussing with two different men that she had not meant to "kill her baby" after miscarrying in her fifth month of pregnancy. A woman tells a man that she had rescued a baby bird after it had been kicked out of its nest and the man tells the woman that the bird was about to be thrown away. A woman asks another woman if her parents had been in prison for anything violent and she replies that they had. A man jokingly asks a woman if she wants to steal a car or go skinny-dipping to break the law; they are later seen in a train car, presumably riding the rails and she shouts that she is breaking the law. A woman shouts at a man and slams a door in his face. A man shouts at another man. A woman implies to a man that he needs to clean up a person's vomit after they had "rehabbed" all over a porch (we do not see vomit). A woman jokes to a man that her surroundings are so beautiful that she "doesn't want to pee in the toilet." A woman jokingly tells another woman to not take laxatives because they "never work when they should."
 A woman is heard coughing and dry heaving, and we see her leaning over a trashcan, but no vomit is seen or heard.

LANGUAGE 4 - 16 scatological terms, 5 sexual references, 6 anatomical terms, 21 mild obscenities, name-calling (hoss, dummy, Country Barbie, more scared than a country mouse, ignoramus, dumb beauty queen, basket case, dumb, crazy, Pretty Pennies), 5 religious profanities, 10 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman takes an assortment of pills and when a man asks another man about the pills a woman is taking the man assures him they are fine as long as the woman is not drinking. Throughout the movie there are repeated discussions of a woman's alcoholism, including the repercussions from her drinking, including a miscarriage from a fall while intoxicated, being charged with drunken and disorderly conduct, and having to go to rehab, a woman is seen intoxicated on multiple occasions, including being drunk to the point of slurring her words, slinging drinks, dancing on a bar and having to be carried, a man and a woman are seen drinking to the point of inebriation, bottles of alcohol are seen littering the ground around them as they joke about being intoxicated, men and women are seen drinking socially in bar settings as well as toasting with a bottle of champagne, and men and women are heard singing multiple songs with lyrics about drinking and alcohol. Men are seen smoking cigarettes on multiple occasions.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Alcoholism, falling from fame, Make-A-Wish Foundation, beauty pageants, Townes Van Zandt, Carrie Underwood, recovery and rehabilitation, country music, Loretta Lynn, miscarriages, consequences of addiction, infidelity in a marriage, suicide, depression, mental illnesses, guilt, blame.

MESSAGE - Alcoholism is a serious illness and people need a strong support group to survive.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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