Argh...the horror! The next festive 'treat' that Netflix offers up is 2020's Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square, a full-on holiday musical special filmed entirely on a very obvious soundstage. It's really not for me and is a real endurance test. Research tells me that this one actually won awards so perhaps it's impressive if you like that sort of thing. It just makes me want to cry.
It's unusual to me that, in this modern age of groundbreaking digital effects and camera trickery, Netflix would create something that looks so hokey, with all the visual flair of those bits in the studio in Scrooged, or that school show I worked on when I was 13.
This one has a comically unfeasible plot that sees Christine Baranski doing what she does best as rich bitch Scrooge-a-like Regina who returns to her impossibly wholesome little town after years away. Apparently her late father owned the entire town or something and devilish Regina has now inherited the deeds. She gleefully swaggers around the town's gorgeously festive, candy cane-festooned square handing out eviction notices to everyone so she can rip it all down and build a shopping centre. The witch.
This all takes place amidst the cheesiest, campest song and dance intro where everyone grooves and pirouettes through the square, singing about "jinglin' bells" and all that. The phrase "as camp as Christmas" was surely invented for this thing. Dolly Parton herself looms over proceedings as a suspiciously glamorous, surgically-enhanced homeless lady, holding a placard that begs for "Change" - get it? Of course, she turns out to be an angel.
Only the magic of Christmas and the joy of song can possibly change Regina’s wicked ways and so on and we get songs and little subplots aplenty. Treat Williams is kinda charming as Regina's old flame who still believes she can be good and the old boy's still got the voice of an angel.
In an enjoyably bonkers bit, Josh Segarra plays a pastor who, along with his wife (Mary Lane Haskell) sings a bizarre song about getting I.V.F. treatment. You don't see that everyday.
We also get a whole thing about some poor kid in a coma and various jokes about brain tumours? It's surreal and not in a good way. We also get lots of stuff about the bible and a long-lost baby but I don't think I'm invested enough to follow what it all means.
The whole thing is mesmerizingly absurd, with Dolly presiding over everything in a none-more-Dolly rhinestone outfit. She's still as charming as ever but now a little frightening when she talks. She's 75 now and, with all the surgery she's had, it's difficult to work out what age she's trying to look like or what planet she's meant to be from. But, I tell you what - she can still sing with the best of them. She croons her impeccably chirpy tunes while inhabiting a glittering realm that's not meant for mere, heterosexual mortals like me.
There are confusing songs about murder, comparing Regina to a witch, but also songs about how Christmas can fix everything that's wrong with the world, which is always good, I guess. It's all a glimpse inside Parton's mad, shiny, rich brain, though it's clear she certainly means well. When this came out, a lot was made about how she'd donated millions to help develop a Covid vaccine, so good for her. However, this is a hyperactive, ostentatious fever dream I could really have done without. A big part of this quest was about me trying to broaden my horizons, exposing myself to the types of films I'd normally avoid. Sadly, eleven months in and especially after this one, my stance on musicals has definitely not altered.
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