Sisterhood strong enough to last a Lifetime. "Patsy & Loretta" compresses 18 months of a tragically brief friendship between two country music legends into one pretty good biopic. But the performers lift it up to a higher level. Megan Hilty (who plays and sings Patsy Cline) and Chicago stage alum Jessie Mueller (who plays and sings Loretta Lynn) tell an inspiring parallel story: that of a couple of Broadway pros with the chops to finesse 90 minutes of dramatic shorthand.
Director Callie Khouri's project, with a script by Angelina Burnett, borrows the title's ampersand from Khouri's Oscar-winning "Thelma & Louise" screenplay. The Lifetime network's promotional campaign for "Patsy & Loretta" features Hilty and Mueller in tough, defiant, hit-the-road poses evoking Khouri's 1991 film.
The movie covers the years 1957 through 1963, introducing Cline and Lynn separately, four years prior to their meeting in 1961. Hilty warms up the story with a hearty rendition of "Come On In," as Cline takes the stage at a Winchester, Virginia, honkytonk. She's about to embark on her second marriage. Kyle Schmid plays Charlie Dick, equal parts supportive husband and simmering pot of resentment. "There are two things I want in this world," Cline tells Dick early on. "Babies, and hit records."
Out in Blaine, Washington, meantime, Lynn and husband Doolittle (Joe Tippett) scrape by with a house full of boisterous kids. Shy by nature and a wife since either 13 or 15 (accounts vary), Lynn contents herself with singing at the kitchen sink. Mueller, who won a Tony Award as Carole King in "Beautiful," has a way of doing a scene like this so that it feels overheard, not overstressed.
With the support of her mother (Janine Turner), Cline kills it at Arthur Godfrey's talent show, while Lynn makes her way forward as a singer-songwriter with surly input from her husband about how makeup will make her look like a "prostitute." "Patsy & Loretta" brings the star and the star-to-be together after Cline's near-fatal 1961 car accident. Though it sounds like biopic fraudulence, it actually happened. Laid up in the hospital, Cline heard Lynn sing a Cline tribute on the radio and wanted to meet her.
The movie's story beats and rhythms at times feel mighty rushed. There's easily enough material in this friendship, cut short by Cline's fatal 1963 airplane crash, for a four-hour miniseries or more. Hilty more easily suggests the aura, swagger and vocal timbre of the real Cline than Mueller evokes the look, feel and sound of the coal miner's daughter from Butcher Holler, Kentucky. Mueller's edge is softer than the real Lynn's. But there's steel underneath the surface, always, and director Khouri nudges Hilty and Mueller toward realism whenever possible. The roughest domestic scenes in "Patsy & Loretta," in both women's lives, forego melodrama for vivid, unsettling slices of life.
Both singers tend to pretty up the vocal stylings of the legendary singers they're impersonating. Though, the film has a Lifetime malnourishment about it - limited in settings, lacking in razzle dazzle, not even getting the take-off weather right for that ill-fated plane flight. It's "brisk" to the point of "hurried." It's still a most worthwhile endeavor and a worthy film to watch on a Saturday night.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-show:
The Pre-show is divided in two sections. Section A (film extras) concerns Patsy's life through extra videos which will help us to understand her life and circumstances. Section B (TV on deck) continues the adventures of 60s & 70s half hour comic sitcoms plus the thrilling on-going serial The Batman, where it always ends with comments such as: "Don't fail to see "Chapter 4 - Slaves Of The Rising Sun" of Batman at this theatre next week!" Boy, was it easy to thrill us back in the day!
The Main Feature:
Title: Patsy & Loretta
Director: Callie Khouri
Cast: Megan Hilty / Jessie Mueller / Janine Turner / Kyle Schmid
Release Date: 19-10-19
Country: United States
On Your Way Out:
Grab 'em! Use 'em! Enjoy 'em! What more to say, than have lots of fun!
Cheers, Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario