File this one under guilty pleasure.  This sudsy soap opera is set against the angst-ridden world of country music, and it jams every Lifetime Television cliché imaginable into a running time just shy of two hours. There’s a constant barrage of booze, drugs, depression, adultery, love, and loss. I’d be flat out lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it immensely.

If you are the type of person who can’t wrench yourself away from the Lifetime Movie Network (guilty as charged) you will eat this stuff up.  I’m already fantasizing about when this movie will go into heavy rotation on cable.

I can’t really defend the movie as fine film making. It’s a mess of a story that jumps all over the place.  Writer and director Shana Feste seemed to try to cram way too many storylines into the film, and it suffers as a consequence. It’s also not particularly original, if you have ever seen any movie about the country music industry.

However, what this film has got going for it is Gwyneth Paltrow, and a talented supporting cast. Gwyneth seems like a ridiculous choice to play a country western star. She’s an elitist blueblood actress who was born into a heavy-hitting Hollywood family (Blythe Danner is her mother, the late Bruce Paltrow was her father) and has alienated a lot of her fans with her self-righteous Goop website.

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