Syl Loretta Lynn is perhaps the best known female country singer around today. Sissy Spacek was awarded a well-deserved Academy Award for her performance as the country music icon. Sissy perfectly captures Loretta's voice, mannerisms and personality in her performance. She begins the film as a naive 14 year old girl from a large coal mining family in small town Kentucky. Through the film, viewers watch Loretta grow up, marry, became a mother and then a country music singer. Tommy Lee Jones played her husband. He was perfectly cast in the role and is believable in the role. Doolittle comes home from the war in Kentucky and spots young Loretta. Levon Helm played Loretta's coal mining father. He was also a music icon too. The film was done on location in Kentucky and Tennesee as well. British film director Michael Apted did a phenomenal job in directing this classic film. I loved seeing the Ryman Auditorium (The Grand Old Opry) in Nashville. I was fortunate to see Loretta Lynn perform "Coal Miner's Daughter" at the new Grand Old Opry in Nashville ten years ago. We learn about the hardships and labor of coal mining. Doolittle and Loretta marry in a justice of the peace ceremony. Loretta and Doolittle move to Washington State for Doo's work. He gets a guitar for his wife as a present. There is a beautiful love story despite the age difference between Loretta and Doolittle. Loretta Lynn has come a long way since those days in a log cabin in Kentucky but she hasn't forgotten her roots.

bkoganbing Sissy Spacek got her career role and her Oscar portraying country singing legend Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter. The film was also up for Best Picture in 1980 and for a bunch awards in the technical fields. But only Spacek brought home the gold.Loretta Lynn came from a background about as humble as you can get. She was as the title says of the film and one of her hit songs a Coal Miner's Daughter. From a place called Butcher Holler. One of the great strengths that Coal Miner's Daughter has is the location cinematography in Kentucky and Tennessee. Hollywood could never recreate the look of the poverty she came from.She was the eldest of several kids born to Levon Helm and Phyllis Boyens-Liptak playing her parents Ted and Clary Webb. She was an assistant Moma to her younger siblings and a real Moma with for kids by the time she was 20. She married at 14 to Doolittle Lynn aka Mooney because of his original profession of moonshiner. But she liked to sing and it was her husband that said some of those songs that she made up just might be a career path. Anything was better than the unimaginable poverty in those Kentucky hills. Watching this film today, made in 1980 and set in the 50s and 60s I thought about things today which are probably worse than in Loretta Lynn's salad days. Then the United Mine Workers was a strong union and insured some kind of living for these people. But coal for environmental reasons has been abandoned. Could Loretta Lynn make it out in 2017. She would sure have more incentive.During her early days Loretta was mentored by Patsy Cline played here by Beverly D'Angelo. Both had the same problems, husbands who were on the sidelines of their wives' career. In this case Tommy Lee Jones plays an easy going Doolittle Lynn who feels a need every now and then to kick up their heels.Of course the second great strength of Coal Miner's Daughter is the score of Loretta Lynn hits in the film. If you are not a Loretta Lynn fan, you might just become one after viewing this film. Some of Patsy Cline's hits are included, a little preview so to speak of her biopic Sweet Dreams.Coal Miner's Daughter is as fresh as the day it was released and a must for country music fans.

grantss The story of Loretta Lynn, superstar of country music. From her time growing up (as Loretta Webb) in the coal-mining town of Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, to her marrying "Doolittle" Lynn when only 15 years old, their marriage, her taking up singing and playing guitar to her first forays into making music, her making it big and the impact it had on her.Pretty good biopic. I'm not a country music fan, but you have to admire the way she, supported by her husband, made it to the top. No instant fame based on some cheesy televised talent show, she had to do it the hard way, through promoting herself, playing concerts in small venues and sheer talent and perseverance. The portion of the movie that shows her rise to the top is definitely the highlight of the movie. Her childhood gives a good background but is otherwise not that interesting. The conclusion is okay but not that profound or emotional. It's the middle that matters.So what you have is a conventional, linear biopic. No flashbacks, no great profundities, no great personal demons to overcome (biopics tend to thrive on personal demons). What lifts this movie above the average biopic, however, are the performances of Sissy Spacek, as Loretta Lynn, and Tommy Lee Jones, as Doolittle Lynn. Both are fantastic in their roles and the chemistry between them is great too. Spacek won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance.Good support from Beverley D'Angelo as Patsy Cline. Levon Helm (of The Band) gives a solid performance as Ted Webb, Loretta Lynn's father.

rkbuchan759 Coal Miner's Daughter: Sissy Spacek was personally chosen by Loretta Lynn to play the lead in this in fabulous recreation of the story of her climb out of the Kentucky coal mine squalor to her honored place as " The First Lady of Country Music". Sissy spent months with Loretta and even toured with her to prepare. Sissy did such a great job with the vocals, recording staff on the road had an impossible task remembering which track was Loretta & which was Sissy. Early in her career Loretta Lynn meets Patsy Cline and the two form an instant friendship and are virtually inseparable until Patsy's sudden death in a tragic plane crash. (One of Loretta's twin girls born shortly after was named "Patsy".) Tommy Lee Jones plays Loretta's husband "Mooney ". Beverly D'Angelo plays Patsy Cline. Incredibly, Sissy & Beverly do ALL their OWN singing in the movie! Extremely well done ! So real you can almost taste the coal dust! 10*