Customer Reviews

Doing Time for Patsy Cline

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I really like this movie because it can be enjoyed on so many levels - the accomplished acting, the catchy music, and the double story line. This is a movie that tells two stories - what actually happened, and what Ralph, the main character, dreamed could happen. Some may find it confusing because the movie entwines the two stories, moving from reality to imagination with no intervening explanation. It is not, as some people think, a time shift movie showing present and future, but a contrast between what is happening to the main character as he languishes in remand, and what he would like to happen. The protagonist is an eighteen year old leaving home in outback Australia to go to Nashville to become a country music star. While hitchhiking, he is picked up by Richard Roxburgh and Miranda Otto and becomes infatuated with the Mirando Otto character, Patsy, named after Patsy Cline. The two become friendly and Ralph fantasised about her leaving Richard Roxburgh and being with him. When their car is stopped by the Police and traces of drugs are found, the two men are arrested and put in remand waiting for trial. Patsy gets away without the Police noticing her. In jail, Ralph fills in the boring hours by further fantasies of what it would be like if he were actually in Nashville with Patsy as his singing partner. During this time, Ralph gradually changes from a naive boy into a person with a mature understanding of the complexities of human nature so that by the end of the movie he is prepared to sacrifice his own dreams so that Patsy, revealed to be suffering a serious illness, can be looked after by Richard Roxburgh. He confesses to being the drug possessor, even though he had nothing to do with it, and so goes to prison for three months - "Doing time for Patsy Cline." It is movie full of good music, interesting characterisations, and a sweet and uplifting ending.

Country music is probably even more popular outside the US so it's no wonder that this 1997 film came from Australia. I'm a big fan of "Classic Country" music (before all the "hat acts") and was really looking forward to this film.

Either the writer, producer and director (all the same guy) made a couple of different films and edited them together or he made one film that is disjointed and seems to go in 3 different directions at once. One minute or "hero" - played by Matt Day - is stuck in a prison with a bunch of crazed killers in Sydney Australia and the next he's making a recording in Nashville. And then back to the prison and then back to Nashville. He has (and then doesn't have) a romantic relationship with a girl named Patsy (named for Patsy Cline), who is (or isn't) interested in being a country music star.

The performances by the actors - especially Richard Roxburg in the same bipolar mode as Ray Liotta in Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" (a big favorite of mine) - is good but the changes in the story line will drive you batty.

Both Day and Miranda Otto (who plays Patsy) sing their own songs - and Day wrote one himself. And their voices are great. In fact the songs in the movie make one wish that there were a "soundtrack" option on this DVD so you could hear just the songs. But there isn't.

So, as much as I wanted to like this film - which won a bunch of Australian Film Festival awards (including, of course, for best score!) - I can't really recommend it.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"