Hoping for Deliverance

Dirty cheeks and calico dresses do not a movie about Appalachia make. This stereotype-heavy sentimental journey is ten pounds of sap in a five-pound bag.

Even if your life is at stake, even if all the lives of everyone you love are at stake; don't see "Songcatcher." It's horrible. It's the worst movie-ever. Trust me. You'd be better off at one of this summer's jejune blockbusters. Or reading a book. Or watching TV. Or just sitting on your couch looking at your toes. It's that bad.

Writer/Director Maggie Greenwald has created a premise that is completely predictable. After being passed over for tenure yet again and being frustrated by her married lover's lack of spine, Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) visits her lesbian sister (Jane Adams) at her school in Appalachia. Soon after, the degreed musicologist is caught up in the local music scene. Lucky for Dr. Penleric, her sister's orphan charge (Emmy Rossum) just happens to be a great singer and easily persuaded with fancified city things and money. Because of her success with the orphan, Dr. Penleric decides to document "scientifically" all the songs of Appalachia. That'll show those misogynists at her school what she's made of, right?

At any rate, as per the stereotype, the mountain folk are suspicious of the doctor and her civilized ways. But soon she wins over the heart of the matriarch of the mountain (Pat Carroll) and all the songs are hers for the taking, much to the dismay of the matriarch's war-jaded son (Aidan Quinn).

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I'm sure you can see where this is going, right? It is 1907 and it is Appalachia, so there is the inevitable citified representative of the coal mines for a villain, the discovery of the lesbian relationship-first by the sister and then by the surly adolescent employed by the school who then tells the entire community, a fire and brimstone preacher meeting, the obligatory bloody birth scene in which both the doctor and the mother and baby triumph, a throw-down hoe down, and enough dirty cheeks to keep Mr. Bubble employed for a lifetime. Oh, and a whole lot of singing (pronounced "sainging").

You'd think in a movie called "Songcatcher" that has been touted as wanting to cause a revival of folk music, that there'd be good music. Add to that the fact that Taj Mahal, Emmylou Harris, Hazel Dickens and Iris Dement are in the cast, and you'd probably be willing to bet the house on there being good music. Well, you'd be homeless. Much like last year's bomb "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" the music and the movie seem to be completely unattached to one another. As Aidan Quinn as Tom Bledsoe tells McTeer's Penleric that his music isn't for anyone but himself, we can believe him.

This movie turns the music that inspired the likes of Dylan and Guthrie into bubbly little tunes intended to put babies to sleep. There's no Walker Evans portraits around here. Apparently, the good versus evil fight between coal mine rep and farmer and the lesbian side story were enough politics for this movie.

Songcatcher is as uptight and patronizing as its main character. It never ventures beyond stereotype and never, ever lets its characters change. By the end of the movie I was ready to scream if Janet McTeer gave us yet another one of those big-eyed pensive looks while listening to yet someone else belt out a song. Proving, I suppose, that you can dress a girl in calico, but you just can't take her out.

  Beck Finley is a freelance writer and critic. She lives on the Missouri side of Kansas City with her husband, Ryan Kegley, and dog, Tummy.