No one will dispute that Dolly Parton is a great entertainer. Her songs, from \u201cJolene\u201d to \u201cI Will Always Love You,\u201d are simply written but have resonated deeply with generations of music lovers \u2014 and not just country music lovers \u2014 as she has the ability to speak about her own experience in a way that has universal appeal.<\/p>\n
Her decision to turn some of those signature songs into full blown, holiday-themed TV movies may satisfy her fan base \u2014 last year\u2019s \u201cCoat of Many Colors\u201d racked up more than 15 million viewers for NBC \u2014 but this year\u2019s installment, which has the clunky title \u201cDolly Parton\u2019s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love,\u201d proves that the singer\u2019s life story, when told by others, delivers clich\u00e9s by the carton and treacle by the truckload.<\/p>\n
After an earnest introduction by Parton, who stands in front of her lucrative theme park \u201cDollywood,\u201d singing a few bars from \u201cCircle of Love\u201d and revealing that, at age 70, her clear soprano is fine condition, the movie starts. We are transported back in time \u2014 1955, to be exact \u2014 to Locust Ridge, Tenn., where Dolly\u2019s parents, Robert and Avie (Ricky Schroder and Jennifer Nettles) are raising their huge brood in a small cabin and facing the prospect of a grim Christmas. Mrs. Parton has saved up enough money to buy one present for each of her eight children, but what Mr. Parton wants most is to buy his wife the wedding ring he could never afford to give her. Avie tells him not to worry. \u201cAfter eight kids, I\u2019m about as married as I can get,\u201d she says with characteristic good humor.<\/p>\n
The Partons don\u2019t need much to keep them happy and scenes of them singing \u201cGo Tell It on the Mountain,\u201d with Avie playing the mandolin and Dolly (Alyvia Alyn Lind, too cute by half) the guitar ring true. The movie\u2019s main plot, in which Robert and young Dolly come up with a plan to get that wedding ring, seems contrived, especially as it leads to a series of near-disasters that can only be erased by another series of convenient miracles. In quick succession, we have a blizzard that traps Avie and the kids in the cabin without heat or food, a baby who takes sick and a mine explosion that strands Robert far away from home. In one of the film\u2019s many moments of homespun hokum, the real Dolly Parton says in a voiceover, \u201cOur tears froze on our faces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adv<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n Yes, she really says that.<\/p>\n We have grown accustomed to holiday films that overplay their hand, ultimately alienating viewers with gooey sentimentality in a desperate attempt to reassure its audience\u00a0that there is no place like home and love will conquer all (even grinding poverty), and this \u201cCircle of Love\u201d is no exception. While the filmmakers behind the Parton Christmas franchise (among them veteran daytime soap writer Pamela K. Long) have sprinkled some genuine moments in the story and made a great hire in casting Nettles as the tenacious Parton matriarch, they have inadvertently made their subject, the charismatic singer herself, into someone whose life you\u2019d rather not hear about anymore.<\/p>\n Sometimes, a story is best told in a three-minute song.<\/p>\n\r\n \t