Crazy Heart is a film not to be missed. Depending on where you live, Crazy Heart has either opened in the past few weeks or will be opening in the next several weeks. (Here’s a roll out schedule I was invited to screen it recently because I’ll be interviewing the writer/director Scott Cooper for Mom Culture. While I knew I was in for a great film, I was surprised at how deeply I connected to it as a mother...I’ll explain.

All the reviews for this film have been glowing, and for great reason. The story is compelling - it’s told and directed in a captivating way and the acting is incredible. But I can tell you that through a mom’s eyes, there’s much to love about this film that wasn’t even mentioned in the reviews.

1) The Accidental Heroine
I was under the impression that the character Bad Blake, a role for which Jeff Bridges is deservedly getting Oscar buzz, was the most important player in the film. But Crazy Heart is a love story with themes of forgiveness and redemption and it’s Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character, Jean - a single mother, who is the catalyst to the plot’s unfolding. Jean is the accidental heroine...leave it to the mom to save the day and not even realize it....

2) Balancing Needs
Jean is a single mom of a 4 year old trying to find that balance between being responsible to her child’s needs and also attending to her own. Sound familiar?

I don’t know one parent who doesn’t strive to put their child first...and though we all do this lovingly, we know that it can be at the cost of our own needs falling by the wayside. In Crazy Heart, Jean’s struggle with her desire to fulfill her own needs versus acting on what’s best for her child is so easy to relate to as a mother. On a daily basis moms live this kind of back-and-forth, trying to find the ideal equilibrium.

3) Forgiveness
One of the overarching themes of Crazy Heart is the idea of forgiveness and redemption -- both Bad Blake and Jean take this journey. But it’s Jean’s journey that will especially penetrate the moms in the audience. It’s one thing to work on forgiving yourself for choices made that affect only you, but it’s an entirely different thing to try to forgive yourself when your choices affect your children.

Is anyone harder on themselves than moms? You know those “I was a bad mom” days -- when you yelled at your child and felt terrible about it afterwards; when exhaustion or stress made you impatient and moody? Forgiveness doesn’t always come easy and in Crazy Heart you are watching these characters you care about trudge through this complex process. But as a mom, I especially ached along with Jean as she worked through forgiveness, especially as it related to her son.

I can’t say much more without giving things away, but I can tell you that Crazy Heart is as good as the critics say. The journey I was taken on is captivating from opening to closing credits and as a mother I particularly connect with the essence of Jean’s experience. How it plays out in the film moved me and hung on my heart long after I left the theater.

(if you’re interested in my interview with writer/director Scott Cooper, it will post on Friday, 1/15, at Mom Culture.)