David Denby

“In the courtship and marriage of Doo and Loretta, the filmmakers are trying to capture something unusual--not a deep sexual attraction but a mutual longing for partnership that is as powerful, as fated, as the greatest of romances. The revelation is here is Tommy Lee Jones….

“We may not feel as close to Loretta, who isn't so clearly a focused a character. I don't think Rickman ever figured out what he wanted to say about Loretta Lynn and the relation of her music to her life. We see her singing only once when she's a kid, and Sissy Spacek, who's physically very convincing as a thirteen-year-old, doesn't give her any specific character as she gets older. We're puzzled when Doo suddenly pushes this mother of four into a singing career. It's as if he had some flash in the night that his wife was a performing genius and after a short period of reluctance she simply agreed with him. Her drive upward falls in and out of cliché….

“…. [W]e wait for an emotional climax that never comes. Sissy Spacek sings Loretta Lynn's songs accurately but with little intensity of feeling. Listening to that tiny voice, we can't hear any pain or joy--as we could in Ronee Blakley's heart-wrenching work in Nashville. With her huge, unblinking eyes and demon-child freckles and put-upon manner, Spacek comes off as too vague--almost weightless-for the adult Loretta Lynn, who is a very shrewd and complicated woman. The filmmakers establish Loretta's roots beautifully, but then they fail to show us how she transforms her experience into art, and the movie evaporates into a cloud of pleasantness.”

David Denby
New York, March 17, 1980