The Agency's Posts

BEAUTY; PRICES: OUT OF SIGHT: Does beauty have a price? A casual spin through a department store reveals that it does, and....
Read More>

Is There Danger Lurking in Your Lipstick?: A soft pink, a glowing red, even a cyanotic purple — millions of women and girls apply....
Read More>

Richard Dreyfuss: A lesson in civics, and civility: The actor expounds on the state of education, filmmaking and John Gielgud. Richard Dreyfuss....
Read More>

Will 'The World's End' be 'the most entertaining movie of the year'?: Labor Dayis almost here and we're deep enough into the calendar year that when a film critic....
Read More>

Acting Workshop: The Crazy Teacher: Shark Week 2013: Acting with Sharks - watch more funny videos
Read More>

Disney's 'Planes' allows John Cleese's inner Bulldog to soar: The Monty Python alum talks voice-overs, technique, his return to London and getting together....
Read More>

Oscars Outdoors goes back to the drive-in with 'American Graffiti': George Lucas' 1973 ode to youth and rock marks its 40th year with an Oscars Outdoors screening....
Read More>

Ben Stiller's 'Secret Life of Walter Mitty' to be NYFF centerpiece: At CinemaCon this April,20th Century Foxwas the rare studio that showed its award-season....
Read More>

'We're the Millers' Subverts Family to Construct It: NEW YORK — The cast of "We're the Millers" didn't exactly immerse themselves in....
Read More>

Matt Damon On 'Elysium,' Turning Down 'Avatar,' And The State Of Hollywood Today: It's startling that even Matt Damon -- who very few people would argue against being the....
Read More>
Television review: ABC's 'Nashville' is bold, ambitious and fun
Posted on: 10/12/12
Share/Save/Bookmark
 

Connie Britton and the music are among reasons to watch Callie Khouri's drama about a country star pressured to team with a young artist (Hayden Panettiere.)



When an Oscar-winning screenwriter makes a show for network television, people take notice.

When she decides to situate it in the world of country music and enlists the aid of a legendary (and Oscar-winning) country songwriter, musician and producer T Bone Burnett (who also happens to be her husband), well, now pretty much everyone's looking. So by the time she up and casts one of television's most currently beloved stars, a woman of apparently boundless heart and versatility, Full Critical Attention has been achieved.

For months now, the assumption has been that the title of best new drama of the season is "Nashville's" to lose, and if the pilot is any indication, the show is not in a losing state of mind.
 

Created by Callie Khouri ("Thelma & Louise"), "Nashville"stars Connie Britton as Rayna Jaymes, a country superstar faced with a fading demographic, a conniving plutocrat father, a flawed marriage and a Taylor Swift-ian young nemesis.

As the story opens, she is confronted by an increasingly familiar pit and pendulum: Her artistically fine but commercially challenged new album and tour are not hitting their projected sales quotas, prompting her record company — the label she built, for heaven's sake! — to demand she pair up with Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere), the auto-tuned hot young thang who rules the airwaves.

"Unfortunately, the older business models have become irrelevant," says the maddeningly arrogant new CEO when Rayna asks for a little payback for her years of service.

It's a brilliant line, and one that makes Rayna's battle our own — who among us does not feel that our own personal business model has become irrelevant? (ABC certainly does, as it has already made the pilot available on Hulu, iTunes and its website.) Not that with Britton in charge we needed too much convincing.

TIMELINE: Fall TV premieres and trailers

A woman who can go from "Friday Night Lights" to "American Horror Story" without missing a beat or losing her luminous humanity is a force to be reckoned with, and "Nashville" would be worth watching if for no other reason than to see Britton shine. (Watch how she says the simple word "no" when the combined tour is first suggested to her.)

Fortunately for us, there are plenty of other reasons as well,including the music, which is woven into the fabric of the narrative in a manner more evocative of "Treme" than "Glee."Burnett has enlisted A-listers like John Paul White and Elvis Costello to write for the show, but most songs are not sung in their entirety, and when they are, the action still works around them. (Singles, beginning with one co-written by White, will be released weekly through Swift's label on iTunes,)

The setting too is worth noting. Hollywood in general and television in particular have trouble with the South, which is too often portrayed in desultory broad strokes as one big backwater where, rich or poor, folks are rendered incomprehensible and culturally unconscious by cracker accents and small-mindedness. (The failed "GCB" comes to mind.) Khouri, who has roots in Nashville, is clearly trying to remedy that — this being a pilot, there are broad strokes aplenty but even with a few familiar figures, the colors they wield are shaded and complex.

In addition to being a superstar, Rayna is the still-rebellious daughter of Nashville's former mayor, Lamar Wyatt (Powers Boothe), a man determined to control all he sees, and if that control requires the use of Rayna's down-on-his-luck husband Teddy (Eric Close), then so be it. Never the family breadwinner, Teddy is no longer pulling his weight, meaning that Rayna's career crisis is as much financial as it is emotional — they have the big house to maintain and two young daughters.

It's also more fraught than perhaps even Rayna realizes. Young Juliette, plagued by demons of her own, isn't just young and ambitious, she's vindictive. Using her feminine wiles, as well as her bottomless bank account, she makes a play not only for Rayna's producer but also Deacon (Charles Esten), Rayna's bandleader, best friend and general man who got away.

Mirroring the Rayna-Teddy-Deacon triangle is a trio of young folks working their way up through Nashville's famed Bluebird Cafe: Deacon's niece Scarlett (Clare Bowen), a songwriter-waitress; her current beau, the country hipster Avery (Jonathan Jackson); and the man and musician she should be with, Gunnar (Sam Palladio)

"Nashville" is big, bold, wildly ambitious and great fun, with top notes of Robert Altman's "Nashville," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "All About Eve." More important, for all the plaintive twangs and knowing references to the Bluebird Cafe, there are moments of bare-naked and universal truths.

Art, no matter how folksy, is power, demanding a single-mindedness that easily slides into cruelty, and when we chose to live among the people who know where the old breaks and soft spots are, even unintentional cruelty can prove lethal.

But if the music lasts and the show is this good, what does that matter?

 
COMMENTS
Be the first to post a comment!


Post A Comment:




  • It's 2020! Start booking roles in commercials, fashion, films, theater and more with The Agency Online!

  • NEW WORKSHOP with Barbara Barna & Sean De Simone!

    Hi Everyone and Happy Summer! Sean at Sean De Simone casting and Barbara Barna are teaming up for a super informative and fun Hosting for Home Shopping workshop. A great opportunity for established or experienced TV Hosts and Experts interested in learning how to get noticed and how to get in....
  • MASTERCLASS W. Robin Carus & David John Madore

    A Special Offer for the Agency Community, from one of our favorite NYC Casting Directors! EMAIL FacetheMusicWithUs@gmail.com Or Eventbrite To Sign Up! Class Size is Limited.
  • Don't Fall Into The Comparison Trap

    Hi Everyone! As the second installment in an ongoing series of features by the Agency's amazing community, here's some sage advice from our own Regina Rockensies; a humble (& awesome)veteran we've had the pleasure of working with for a long time. Have an excellent week! : ) - The Agency....
  • One Model's Agreement

    Hi Everyone! As the first piece in an ongoing series of original articles by the Agency community, here's a short reflection on some of the values of professional acting & modeling that we can all keep in mind for our next casting. Good luck on your castings &shoots this week! : ) -....




 
home       castings&news       privacy policy       terms and conditions      contact us      browser tips
Official PayPal Seal