Review – Nashville

This may have been interesting – even radical – back in the mid-70s. Decades later, more than two and a half hours of an ensemble cast improving away at the country music scene makes for some difficult viewing. It’s hard to say what works less: a gaggle of Hollywood types working without a script or a gaggle of Hollywood types pretending to be real people (or at least Tennessee bumpkins rather than “sophisticated” Californians). As a result most of the characters come across as caricatures, and the dialogue is often as mumbled and directionless as a Popeye cartoon. Though this isn’t a bad portrait of its era, overall it’s about as much fun as a drawn-out cocktail party where you don’t know anyone and everyone but you is stoned. See if desperate