Coal Miner's Daughter (7 March 1980)
directed by Michael Apted
starring Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones, Levon Helm, Phyllis Boyens, Beverly D'Angelo
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MPAA rating: Studio: Universal Pictures Script: Thomas Rickman Based on the book by: Loretta Lynn, George Vecsey Music: George Brand Running time: 125 minutes Tags: Biography; Grand Ole Opry; Kentucky; Music; Nashville; singing; teenage pregnancy Tactical strength: [6/10]
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Coal Miner's Daughter takes its material from Loretta Lynn's autobiography of the same name. The movie spans her life from her marriage to Doolittle Lynn at thirteen-years old to the peak of her career about fifteen years later. You don't really get a good sense of the time that has transpired in the film, but in just about each successive scene, Loretta has a new, bigger house.
Sissy Spacek plays Loretta and won an Academy Award for her performance. Spacek does an excellent job with portraying Loretta the adult singer, but I had a hard time with her performance as a thirteen-year-old girl dating and marrying twenty-one-year-old Doolittle "Doo" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones). Spacek would have been about thirty during filming, and Jones about thirty-four. The film tries to make a thirty year old into a thirteen year old, and I would have preferred to see another actress play the younger Loretta. (But maybe the marriage consummation scene with Jones and a real thirteen-year-old actress wouldn't have worked either.)
The film follows the major events in Loretta's life. We first see the impoverished conditions of her hometown in Kentucky where her father works as a coal miner. Lynette gets married at thirteen and moves with her husband to Washington state. Loretta sings continually to her children, and Doo buys her a pawn-shop guitar. The movie gives the impression that Doo recognized Loretta's talent and got the idea that she could become a professional country music singer long before Loretta recognized this possibility or even the level of her own talent. The movie doesn't mention that Loretta won a local talent show contest to get her a television appearance and her first record made, but does show Doo and Loretta on the road promoting her first single.
I don't know much about country music singers, bit you can sure hope that Loretta really has the sweet, honest personality that Spacek portrays. You get the impression that Loretta would just about do anything to please her audience, and the movie shows her literally working herself to the point of collapse. You see Loretta taking some drugs, but you don't really get the impression that drugs were really a problem. Maybe that's candy coating or just the minimizing perspective that we get from an autobiography. Lynette's relationship with Doo has ups and downs. The movie shows her catching Doo with another woman just once, but you get the impression that he had the means, motive, and opportunity to have many extramarital relationships -- especially during the long periods of time Loretta spent on the road with Doo at home with the kids. Loretta also seems to accept a small amount of violence and unfaithfulness from her man, which seems a bit surprising since many of her songs deal with women's issues of that nature. Personally, I would have liked the movie to present more of Loretta's personal philosophy as expressed in her songs and less of her hobnobbing with stars after her rise to fame.
