Coal Miner's Daughter | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

We don't so much root for Spacek as sit back and watch her tell us what happened. She's as much in control of this film as is her director.

Ms. Spacek is a marvel. What other actress could convincingly play a character from age 13 to 36? It's one of those classic performances where we cease to even think of her as an actress. Up on that screen she is Loretta Lynn.

Fortunately, Spacek and Jones are able to make up for the superficiality of the script. Spacek, who does all her own singing in a clear voice that is, at times, more affecting than that of Lynn herself, does one of her magical character transformations.

Perhaps because director Michael Apted is English, his eye for American faces and his ear for American speech is more than refreshing in a town that usually goes for American plastic. Quite a good movie.

Apted celebrates the woman, but fails to capture the performer. The musical sequences are void of the electricity that lured record audiences from the Carolinas to the Continent.