Dolly Parton
The holiday musical Christmas on the Square has received mostly negative reviews. The story involves a rich and nasty woman who returns to her small hometown after her father’s death to evict everyone and sell the land to a mall developer — right before Christmas. The cast includes Dolly Parton (Angel), Christine Baranski (Regina Fuller), Jenifer Lewis (Margeline), Treat Williams (Carl Pellam), Jeanine Mason (Felicity Sorenson), Josh Segarra (Pastor Christian Hathaway), and Mary Lane Haskell (Jenna Hathaway).
The creative team includes Debbie Allen (direction), Maria S. Schlatter (screenplay), Dolly Parton (music), Larry Blank (orchestrations), Oliver Bokelberg (cinematography), Casey O. Rohrs (editing), Ina Mayhew (production design), MaryBeth McCaffrey-Dillon (art direction), Sarah Carter (set decoration), and Provi Fulp Ramphal (costumes). The film is streaming now on Netflix.
AP (Lindsey Bahr): Christmas on the Square is an extremely earnest endeavor with utterly sincere holiday messaging wrapped in an Old Navy scarf and soundtracked by Parton’s 14 original songs. … There is some fun choreography and a few toe-tapping tunes. It’s strongest during songs and whenever Dolly graces the screen. … But the entire endeavor feels rather slapdash. … Ultimately, it’s simply hard to judge too harshly or even hate. … It’s just Dolly’s sweet and innocent Christmas tale with sequins. 1 star out of 4.
Arizona Republic (Bill Gooykoontz): Everyone loves Dolly Parton, let’s just establish that up front. … But even she can’t save Christmas on the Square. … The fault lies not with Parton, nor with Christine Baranski, two people who know their way around songs. Screenwriter Maria S. Schlatter does them no favors. … This is a song-and-dance version of the holiday transformation story. It’s just not a particularly good one. And yes, just the mere suggestion that it is in some way lacking seems like begging for coal in your stocking.
Chicago Sun Times (Richard Roeper): This is an unabashedly sentimental, family-friendly mashup of A Christmas Carol with It’s a Wonderful Life. … Based on the play Christmas on the Square, the movie retains a deliberately stagey persona, with most of the story taking place in an old-fashioned town square, where everybody knows your name. … Christmas on the Square pulls out all the stops from … some expertly executed group song-and-dance numbers … to the most welcome spectacle of a glowing, glimmering Dolly Parton. 3 out of 4 stars.
The Independent (Clarisse Loughrey): It’s a near-constant barrage of singing and dancing, so perpetually energetic that it borders on disorientating. … But its sincerity can’t be questioned and, occasionally, within all the chaos, the hearty comforts of Parton’s songwriting come shining through. … And when Parton stares straight down the camera lens, as if she can see deep inside your soul, it really does seem that simple. 2 out of 5 stars.
Variety (Caroline Framke): Parton’s cannily universal brand goes into holly jolly overdrive. … The cheery town square, with its trinket shops and can-do spirit, immediately puts the likes of Stars Hollow to shame. … This is a movie designed within an inch of its life to appease everyone who might come across it, and if you don’t like it, well, no matter. A merry Christmas to you and yours from Dolly Parton, in all her all-encompassing benevolence, anyway.