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This thoroughly enjoyable 1999 television movie is an appropriately understated vehicle for country superstar Dolly Parton. Though a limited actress, Parton's key role as a saloon singer with suppressed ambitions makes for a perfect fit, neither overextending her lean thespian gifts nor inadvertently mocking her range. Parton sings, of course, yet even the hillbilly angel within yields to the script's focused tale of a love triangle involving underrated singer-songwriter Leanna (Parton), her longtime manager and boyfriend Hank (an outstanding performance by John Terry), and a restless musician (Billy Dean). Veteran director Richard A. Colla (
Fuzz,
Battlestar Galactica) approaches the material with grown-up sensitivity and understanding. As Jean Renoir said, everyone has their reasons, and that's certainly the case with these good people on screen. A subplot concerning Leanna's psychological mistreatment in youth by a wacked-out father is an unnecessary and redundant character note, but other than that misstep,
Blue Valley Songbird is a pure pleasure.
--Tom Keogh
