Sissy Spacek won raves and awards (including the Oscar) for her brilliant performance as country music sensation Loretta Lynn in this 1980 biopic `Coal Miner’s Daughter’ based on the auto-biography Lynn wrote with George Vecsey. Chronicling her rise to fame, `Coal Miner’s Daughter’ serves as much more than just a canvas for Spacek’s acting for the script itself is deserving of heaps of praise, following her life story with candor and authenticity, never over looking important points or focusing too lengthily on nonessential ones, this film serves as a template for all biopics to come on how to cover a persons life with grace, respect and justice.
At just thirteen years of age Loretta Webb marries hotshot Doolittle Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones in a performance that should have at least nabbed him an Oscar nomination) and quickly is thrown into a life she never imagined would be her own. There’s quickly marital problems, some due to her lack of experience `pleasing’ her man, most due to Doolittle’s temper, but by the sweet age of twenty she is raising four children and she’s far from home. Honing in of his wife’s love for music, Doolittle decides to buy her a guitar for their anniversary one year and this sparks in her a drive to success, igniting the road they soon travel in order to make her a country music sensation.
`Coal Miner’s Daughter’ covers her life accurately and fulfilled, leaving no rock unturned sort-a-speak. Littered with flawless acting on the parts of the two leads as well as Beverly D’Angelo who plays the late, great Patsy Cline not to mention the fabulous singing done by the stars themselves (I was floored, I mean they both sound amazing), this film is sure to please any fan of the biopic, anyone interested in the life story of one of country music’s leading ladies or any fan of films like `Walk the Line’ then this is a movie you are sure to enjoy over and over again!
Cast
- Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn
- Tommy Lee Jones as Doolittle ‘Mooney’ Lynn
- Beverly D’Angelo as Patsy Cline
- Levon Helm as Ted Webb
- Phyllis Boyens as ‘Clary’ Webb
- Bob Hannah as Charlie Dick
- William Sanderson as Lee Dollarhide
- Ernest Tubb as Himself
Tags: Coal Miner's Daughter, country