Andrew Sarris

“…. Michael Apted demonstrates here as he has previously in Triple Echo, Stardust, and Agatha a very subtle command of actors and milieux, and an ability to suggest ominous discordances between them. A recurring theme in his films is the nervousness and insecurity of contemporary sex-role playing, and he is very good at projecting uncontrollable anxiety in his characters. ["contemporary"? here and Agatha?]

“For her part, Sissy Spacek never makes a false move as Loretta Lynn. Every gesture and expression is reined in at precisely the moment it has developed the character. It is a textbook performance, completely free of condescension. Unfortunately, Spacek's characterization never erupts into anything approaching a big scene. I already knew that Loretta Lynn had a breakdown somewhere along the way, because the Ronee Blakely character in Nashville was reportedly patterned after Loretta Lynn, and the breakdown scene on stage is as close as we have come to an obligatory scene in this relatively new genre. Well, folks, Spacek's breakdown comes and it goes, and nothing much changes because there is a net under this picture as there was not under Nashville, when Blakely went to pieces, albeit with less grace, finesse, and restraint than Spacek.

“What may have happened is that Loretta Lynn hovered so benignly over the set that she inhibited the living daylights out of everybody, including Tommy Lee Jones…, Beverly d'Angelo…, Levon Helm…, and Phyllis Boyens….

“[W]hat we have in Coal Miner's Daughter is an impeccably nice picture with most of the dust, grit, and squalor seen only fleetingly amid an array of skillfully modulated performances which never stray into irretrievable indecorum. I admire the enormous talent and faultless taste that went into the production. I just wish that somewhere or other there had been the kind of emotional explosion Sissy Spacek could have set off to illuminate fully the extraordinary range and texture of her talent….”

Andrew Sarris
Village Voice, March 10 ?, 1980