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‘Dolly Parton’s Christmas On The Square’ Is, Well, A Very Quirky Holiday Musical

Every moment is Dolly Parton’s moment, but it’s never been more true than this week. She’s not only funding the development of a new COVID-19 vaccine, she’s dropping a Christmas movie musical ― which she co-produced, composed, and performs in ― on Netflix to keep us all entertained through a lonely, cold holiday season. Dolly, thank you.

But is “Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square” any good? Three HuffPost reporters are here to tell you all about it. 

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The Bottom Line

Premiering Sunday, “Christmas on the Square” tests whether the holiday-TV-movie industrial complex can handle maximal musical-theater cheesiness. The results are mixed, to say the least. 

The Rundown

Claire Fallon: Dolly Parton is no newcomer to holiday flicks, and last year released a Hallmark film called “Christmas at Dollywood,” so I thought I knew what to expect from her latest, “Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square.” Matt, Erin, I was wrong. From the opening number, a jaunty ensemble performance set in the titular square, I quickly realized that what I was in for was a little bit Hallmark, sure, but also a little bit “Schitt’s Creek”-meets-Broadway.

The basic plot: Cold-hearted Regina Fuller (Christine Baranski) has recently inherited this charming town from her father and is serving eviction notices at Christmas so that she can sell it to a mall conglomerate. The town’s pastor spearheads a resistance campaign, while Dolly ― an angel who walks among the townspeople disguised as a glamorously made-up panhandler ― tries to change Regina’s heart. What were your initial impressions?

Matthew Jacobs: I realized “Christmas on the Square” would defy all assumptions at the first sight of Dolly’s mildly smeared eyeliner, tattered gray outerwear and stringy bangs. Singing a ballad about the haves and have-nots, she appears to be green-screened into the aforementioned square, possibly because Dolly Parton does not go anywhere without flattering lighting equipment — even when she is supposed to look homeless. It’s the first of many, many, many things in this movie that make little sense. The next is Regina, a Trumpian spin on Ebenezer Scrooge, distributing eviction notices to children.

Erin Evans: Before hitting play, I knew I was gonna be in for a ride. Dolly Parton, Christine Baranski and Jenifer Lewis? Then, I found out Debbie Allen, one of my faves, was directing. So I was IN for all the hijinks.

Now there’s a lot going on in Fullerville, so I had to sit for a second to reorient myself while watching this because it very much gives you over-the-top TV-movie-musical vibes. And the storyline — a mean lady coming to a town to evict everybody in the dead of winter in Fullerville because the Cheetah Mall conglomerate wanted to build a mall — just was … a lot to digest. A mall, really? In this economy? Evictions, really? I couldn’t help but think about the measly $1,200 Americans received in the last eight months. You gotta push that all away to try to enjoy a bit of the quirkiness of this.

CF: Quirky is right. I have never really appreciated the movie musical, and “Christmas on the Square” exemplifies the primary reason: The camera brings the viewer right onstage, where we end up staring closely at broad emoting and ensemble dance numbers from a much closer vantage point than the genre was designed for. It’s … a lot?

MJ: It seems like none of the performers (aside from Baranski and Lewis, who are seasoned enough to survive the script’s silliest impulses) realized they were making a movie and not a stage production. Everyone is operating at an 11 when a 6 would have sufficed.

I think what really got me is how much story gets crammed into 98 minutes, mostly explained via painfully expository song lyrics. Allen and Parton clearly want this town to be a quaint “Gilmore GIrls”-esque snow globe, but instead, it just feels like a bunch of playacting, which makes subplots about infertility, unrequited high school sweethearts, sassy child bartenders, a cancer scare, teen pregnancy and something about a very important lantern all the more awkward. 

EE: RIGHT. It is definitely not the kind of musical that works as background noise while you’re, say, washing the dishes. You really have to pay attention because … there are so many twists and turns.

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