George & Tammy, Paramount+ review: this corny country biopic may not win over the Brits
The tacit assumption that lies behind any biography is that the person’s life is interesting. In many cases the assumption behind the assumption is that their life is interesting because their work is interesting. In the case of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, the “king and queen of country” in the 1970s, that presents a problem, at least to British viewers, because here country music is generally treated with the same level of reverence as WWE wrestling. I am not proud of my ignorance, but it remains the case that I had never heard of George Jones, and I last heard Tammy Wynette singing on the (admittedly excellent) KLF song Justified & Ancient.
With that accepted, George & Tammy (Paramount+), an awards-bait chunk of premium streaming starring A-listers Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon, was about as good as it could have been to these philistinish eyes. It was a detailed, beautifully-made trip back to the late 1960s chronicling the booze-sodden decline of Jones’s career, the hairspray-laden birth of Wynette’s and the ructions caused by their love affair. Whatever it took to get actors of the calibre of Shannon and Chastain on screen together was worth every cent – they’re both the sort of performers you would pay to watch assembling a flat pack.
Which was lucky, as this first episode (of eight) was not exactly looking to grab you by the lapels. In music biopics like this, or Ray or 2005’s Walk the Line, one of the central directorial decisions is how much actual music-making to show, given that it will never stand comparison with the real performer on stage. In the case of George & Tammy, the decision has been made to show really quite a lot of G&T delighting the Grand Old Opry or the Knoxville Theatre. Initially it was impressive that Chastain and Shannon were singing for real, at least for the first few minutes. But after that it felt slightly like repeated reminders that look, the superstar actors can sing mighty fine! Which is a gold star on their respective CVs but added nothing to the story.
It might also have been better if they talked less, too – writer Abe Sylvia seems to have got carried away with country lyrics to the point where lines as corny as “Fast is the only speed I know. I’ll take you any way you want to go” somehow made it into the mouths of actual people.
Much better was when the camera lingered on the two leads neither singing nor spouting folk wisdom, but instead evincing a fierce chemistry. Shannon we know is the absolute master of the thinly disguised, brutally discharged mental meltdown; but Chastain as Wynette was also entirely convincing in a difficult role – an essentially good woman doing something that she knows is probably wrong. It’s obvious, even to Jones and Wynette, that their relationship is going to be a rootin’ tootin’ rollercoaster ride into pedal-steel guitar sadness and regret, but they’re both so good that even the inevitable is going to be worth watching. I’ll just be fast forwarding the songs… at the only speed I know.
