![]() It is also creating the myth of Dolly Parton, the girl who showed up at church with a face painted full of makeup and says, “If I’m going to heaven, why do I have to look like hell to get there?” Part of what makes it watchable is the production value, which really evokes the time period and the pastoral setting in a beautiful way. However, for those who don’t regularly visit the house of the lord, it will make your eyes roll like loose marbles in the back of a station wagon. Is this movie good? Just like Dolly Parton, who is one of the best live performers I’ve ever seen, it is immensely watchable. Is this at all like The Christmas Shoes? You shut your mouth! Though I could see this easily becoming a holiday tradition. ![]() Wait, did Dolly’s mother make her the coat for Christmas? With the intense sentimentality, the emphasis on religion, family and tradition, you would think that this was right out of Hallmark’s treasure trove of Christmas specials starring B-list actors, but it’s not explicitly. If it was a bit more subtle it would be more effective, but might lose some of the hokey charm that these sorts of holiday specials trade in. The problem is these two themes are repeated rather overtly over and over again as if the lesson can’t be learned by eight-year-old Dolly. Is faith the only lesson here? The importance of family and how we need to make sacrifices for the ones we love gets lots of attention too. The problem is, whenever they’re targeted they show up in droves and just spawn more of these kinds of productions.Īnd the coat? Dolly’s mother sews the coat to get her out of her funk, and Dolly loves it until she wears it to school and all the kids make fun of her. This is a movie that self-consciously is appealing to the Christian audience that always feels underserved by Hollywood. How does God fit into all of this or the coat? There is lots of talk about how his plans will work out for everyone and how Dolly’s singing ability is “a gift from him what made you” as her mother says in the hillbilly patois that never manages to not be annoying. When Avie Lee loses a baby, one that Dolly was meant to help care for, both mother and daughter fall into a depression, which threatens to break up the family and derail Dolly’s singing career. In 1955 the Parton clan are poor subsistence farmers living in the Tennessee mountains and Dolly (Alyvia Alyn Lind) is the most precocious of eight children born to Lee (Ricky Schroder) and Avie Lee (Jennifer Nettles), the daughter of a preacher (Gerald McRaney). ![]() I thought this was about Dolly Parton? Yes, but man, does it want everyone to know it’s about God. There is lots of Bible talk in this movie. That sounds a little bit like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat? Funny you mention that, because the story comes up in the movie as well, naturally, because it’s from the Bible. So is this movie about one of the rhinestone coats Dolly has worn on tour? It’s about how her mother sewed her a coat of many colors from a box of rags when she was a kid. When does it premiere? The two-hour made-for-TV movie airs Thursday 10 December at 9pm EST on NBC. ![]()
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