The path to finding a film is often found by going backward. The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom came out in 2011, but some people discovered the film by first watching Wet Bum (2014) and seeing Julia Sarah Stone.
Like Wet Bum, The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom features Stone as an awkward girl who is behind the curve among her peers. Some children go through a phase when they think their parents aren't their real parents. For Elizabeth Alison Gray, she finds out that her parents really aren't her parents.
Libs and her best friend, Belle, love Dolly Parton, which makes a lot more sense in 1976, where the film takes place. But there is a growing chasm between Belle and Libs since Belle has crossed over the path to womanhood by getting her first period. Libs isn't quite there yet.
When Libs confesses at 3 a.m. to Belle that she thinks Dolly Parton is her mother, even our protagonist isn't quite sure she believes it. But her fixation on the country singer is what Libs needs to deal with an overprotective mother who doesn't want time to advance and a father who just wants life to go at a normal pace.
This film has a great sense of place. We know the family lives in Winnipeg, or a part of Winnipeg where mom takes the bus. The border figures prominently with a nod to Minneapolis.
The film is also a Quebec production. That includes Quebec actress Macha Grenon as Marion, Libs mother. Grenon's character makes a dramatic turn in the film; the shift in personality makes you think Grenon is playing two different roles within the same character.
Gil Bellows plays Libs father. U.S. audiences are familiar with Bellows from Ally McBeal and The Shawshank Redemption but might be surprised to find out that Bellows is secretly Canadian. Bellows doesn't have much to do in this film as women dominate this film. There is a brief exchange between men, but no real conversation among them, a reverse Bechdel.
Libs is searching for a mother figure, yet she blows off the prospect of Belle's mother, played by Rebecca Croll, the kind of mother you wish you had when you were 11. The fact that Croll's character name is Stella Kowalski is clearly a homage to A Streetcar Named Desire but doesn't have obvious relevance in the film.
A spiritual nod is included in a nice way to include a section of the Winnipeg population that doesn't get a lot of attention.
Dolly Parton is never seen on screen as herself; she lends her voice and singing as part of a soundtrack complemented with Dolly Parton covers from Martha Wainwright, Coral Egan, The Wailin' Jennys, Nelly Furtado, and Genevieve Toupin.
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Tara Johns, who wrote and directed the film in her feature-length debut, takes us down a path where mother and daughter are trying to figure out their way, and it's not an easy road for either of them.
You do have to suspend quite a bit of reality toward the end of the film, but the story up to that point allows that flexibility and freedom. The mother-daughter dynamic goes all over the place, a bit problematic given how much of the film is spent on that focus. Stone's performance overshadows those relatively minor issues. The film is fiercely Canadian in an area of Canada we don't see all that often.
The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom is a bit more raw than Wet Bum but has its own charm and some really good moments. If you enjoyed Wet Bum, you will have fun with The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom.
The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom is available on Netflix in the United States.
video credit: YouTube/metropole films
photo credit: The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom film
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