Critics make no bones about it: Skip Country Strong. (It's got a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences are more generous at 50%.) A familiar tale of the struggle with fame, the Gwyneth Paltrow flick is pure schlock, they say:
- It’s “a runny-mascara melodrama” in which “the corn is as high as a mechanical bull’s eye,” writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. Paltrow’s character “is a compendium of stereotypes about women forced to choose between career and love (guess which wins), while keeping an eye on the younger competition.”