There's a little of that in "Straight Talk," in which Dolly Parton becomes a radio psychologist by accident. But there's not enough, and the movie slides off into a sappy love story.
Parton plays a Southern woman with a bumpy marital record. He has married and divorced the same man three times, and has given up on matrimony altogether to live with a boyfriend (Michael Madsen) who is indifferent to her. One day she ups and goes. She gets into her car and heads north to the big city of Chicago, which has never looked more innocent and Capraesque than in this film. She checks into a fleabag hotel, goes looking for work, and talks herself into a position as a receptionist at a radio station. Parton's very appearance would stop traffic at any intersection, fleabag hotel or radio station in Chicago, but not in this movie, where she waltzes into the lives of strangers, handing out free advice that's common sense raised to the level of an art.
Through a misunderstanding at the radio station, she is mistaken for the newly hired advice personality, put on the air, and is an instant hit. The best scenes in the movie are the ones where the Parton character simply speaks her mind. Her advice is sound, earthy and blunt. She gives it on the air and off, and soon she's such a star that she can move out of the fleabag and into her own high-rise apartment. The rest of the movie is easily predictable, right down to the false crisis, the real crisis, the fight, the reconciliation, and the big romantic scene at the end. The movie isn't knowledgeable about radio stations or newspapers. It flirts with the problems of an advice personality who plays God, but doesn't deal with them. And the love affair between Parton and Woods isn't convincing because they never really seem to connect; each is such a unique, self-defined personality that we can't imagine them easily losing their hearts to anybody.
Parton plays a Southern woman with a bumpy marital record. He has married and divorced the same man three times, and has given up on matrimony altogether to live with a boyfriend (Michael Madsen) who is indifferent to her. One day she ups and goes. She gets into her car and heads north to the big city of Chicago, which has never looked more innocent and Capraesque than in this film. She checks into a fleabag hotel, goes looking for work, and talks herself into a position as a receptionist at a radio station. Parton's very appearance would stop traffic at any intersection, fleabag hotel or radio station in Chicago, but not in this movie, where she waltzes into the lives of strangers, handing out free advice that's common sense raised to the level of an art.
Through a misunderstanding at the radio station, she is mistaken for the newly hired advice personality, put on the air, and is an instant hit. The best scenes in the movie are the ones where the Parton character simply speaks her mind. Her advice is sound, earthy and blunt. She gives it on the air and off, and soon she's such a star that she can move out of the fleabag and into her own high-rise apartment. The rest of the movie is easily predictable, right down to the false crisis, the real crisis, the fight, the reconciliation, and the big romantic scene at the end. The movie isn't knowledgeable about radio stations or newspapers. It flirts with the problems of an advice personality who plays God, but doesn't deal with them. And the love affair between Parton and Woods isn't convincing because they never really seem to connect; each is such a unique, self-defined personality that we can't imagine them easily losing their hearts to anybody.