‘Heartland’ Netflix Review: Jessica Chastain Has No Time for Nashville’s Bullshit

A really good performance from a major actor can give a movie considerably more weight than it might otherwise have. And I’m not just talking about star power, box-office appeal or sheer charisma. I’m talking about the kind of actor who brings enough grit, nerve and sheer intensity to a project to make you forget, at least for a while, how little there is holding it together. That’s pretty much what happens with Heartland, a sort of country music neo-noir that runs almost entirely on Jessica Chastain’s fierce commitment to making it work. Take her out of the equation and there’s not much left to hang on to.

Chastain plays Misty Jones, once a country music star who fell from grace two decades ago following a string of very public scandals. These days, she’s living in a remote cabin somewhere in the Georgia backwoods, keeping to herself (apart from a neighbor she can’t stand). That relatively peaceful existence comes to an abrupt end when her brother Donny (Paul Sparks) calls with some bad news: his daughter Charlie (played by actual country singer Carter Faith) has gone missing. And he needs Misty’s help finding her. What can she possibly do? Head to Nashville, where she still knows pretty much everybody, and try to figure out what happened to Charlie, a promising young singer on her way up. Reluctantly, Misty agrees.

Once she hits Music City, bits and pieces of her own past begin to surface, along with a few secrets about Charlie’s life. Before long, Misty has turned herself into an amateur sleuth, Stetson firmly in place and patience running dangerously low with just about everyone she encounters. It’s clear that she was once a big deal in the country music business, and equally clear that she’s not someone you’d want to cross unless you’re prepared to get hurt. Let’s just say she’s got a temper, a mouth to match and very little interest in playing nice. As she starts asking questions, the local cops seem oddly unconcerned, while Charlie’s manager, Roy (Garrett Hedlund), a well-connected Nashville music executive, is equally dismissive. Charlie has a habit of disappearing, they tell her. She’s done it before. Misty isn’t buying it, though, and keeps digging. It’s pretty obvious from the start who’s got the right end of the stick.

Beyond Chastain’s tightly wound, all-in performance, one of the movie’s few points of interest is its glimpse into the machinery of the country music business: how new talent is discovered, groomed, packaged and eventually sold to the public as the next big thing. Misty herself once played a part in that process, until her explosive personality and complete lack of filters made her too much of a liability for the people trying to manage her career. It’s an ecosystem involving promoters, music journalists, musicians, obsessive fans and even the police, who seem perfectly willing to look the other way when certain things happen behind the scenes.

Heartland rarely manages to generate any real suspense about Charlie’s whereabouts or the twists and turns of the investigation. The search quickly wanders off in directions that lead nowhere, and it’s obvious from the beginning that there’s not much to be found there. The same goes for the people ultimately responsible for whatever happened to the young singer. Anyone who’s watched even a modest amount of film noir will have a pretty good idea where this is headed, give or take a few plot details. It’s Chastain who gives Shana Feste’s movie its pulse and makes it worth sticking with. Feste has several films under her belt, none particularly memorable, and quite a few connected to this same corner of the music business. Here, the director once again finds herself working in familiar territory, but it’s her leading lady who provides most of the spark. Fortunately, Chastain is in pretty much every scene.

In fact, there’s another, potentially more interesting movie lurking somewhere inside Heartland, one that Feste leaves largely unexplored. It has to do with Misty’s own history, her relationship with her former partner (John Hawkes) and certain aspects of her private life that I won’t give away here. It’s essentially a country music marriage drama, complete with betrayals, heartbreak and the wreckage left behind. Feste may have already explored some of that territory in her earlier Country Strong (2010), of which this film could be seen as a kind of spiritual sequel. But there’s considerably more dramatic material to be mined from that side of the story than from this rather earthbound imitation of a film noir. The trouble is that Heartland keeps chasing a mystery that never amounts to much, when its most compelling story is the one it barely bothers to tell.