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Doing Time For Patsy Cline

1997, Movie, PG, 95 mins

Doing Time For Patsy Cline: Review

DOING TIME FOR PATSY CLINE
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A down–under fable with a sweet country-music twang, Chris Kennedy's darkly comedy road movie about a back-country boy from Oz with Nashville dreams ambled into US theaters nearly ten years after it was made, during which time leads Richard Roxburgh, Miranda Otto and Matt Day established international profiles in such films as MOULIN ROUGE (2001), LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001)/THE TWO TOWERS (2002) and SHACKLETON (2002). Born and raised on an isolated outback farm, 17-year-old Ralph (Day) dreams of Nashville stardom. His loving but practical parents (Annie Byron, Roy Billing) think he's setting himself up for heartbreak, but buy Ralph a plane ticket anyway. The future looks rosy until he hitches a ride with a squabbling couple in a sharp new car: Ralph promptly develops a crush of flakey, red-headed beauty Patsy (Otto), who was named after Patsy Cline and warbles like a sweet Southern songbird, despite the volatile presence of her shady boyfriend, Boyd (Roxburgh). And before you can say "," Ralph is smack dab in the middle of a hard-luck ballad rife with unrequited love, tough times and bad breaks. Boyd, it turns out, is a drug dealer and the car is stolen; someone sics the police on them and while Patsy escapes, Ralph and Boyd are tossed into a small-town lock-up, next to a cell full of hard cases who wile away the hours boutchering country songs. Lies are told, secrets revealed and unlike alliances forged, and the present day footage is intercut flash forwards — or are they? — to a future in which Patsy, Boyd and Ralph are reunited in Nashville and their intertwined destinies play out to their bourbon-and-teardrops conclusions. Otto (who not only sings, but sings well enough to deliver a very creditable version of Cline's tricky signature tune, "Crazy"), Roxburgh and Day are terrific, and composer/lyricist Peter Best delivers a series of top-notch country music pastiches — his pitch perfect "Dead Red Roses" is the essence of every bittersweet love song that ever wafted out of a never-never land honky-tonk jukebox 'round midnight. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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