BIG STONE GAP
When a movie has characters with names such as Fleeta Mullins, Sweet Sue Tinsley, Miss Iva Lou Wade and Spec Broadwater, it’s practically inviting you to regard it as the cinematic equivalent of that overly huggy, incessantly needy relative who’s always showing up with baked goods and gossip, and thinks she’s the life of the party, when in fact everyone in the room is inventing excuses for an early exit the moment she arrives.
“Big Stone Gap” is set in the small-town Virginia of the 1970s, when an unmarried woman of about 40 was still called a “spinster,” a man who liked men kept that to himself, and everyone in town was all up in everyone else’s business.
Ashley Judd is the narrator and our guide to life in this cloistered community in the Appalachian Mountains. She plays one Ave Maria Mulligan, who runs the pharmacy, is involved in all sorts of local activities such as the theater and keeps herself busy with myriad hobbies and good deeds.
The town is filled with lovably eccentric characters, including Whoopi Goldberg’s chain-smoking, wisecracking, cynical but gold-hearted Fleeta Mullins; Patrick Wilson’s Jack MacChesney, a soap-opera handsome, guitarplaying coal miner; Jane Krakowski as Sweet Sue Tinsley, and Jenna Elfman as Iva Lou Wade, and it’s a toss-up as to which performance is more over-the-top and irritating.
Ave Maria lives up to her name. The woman’s a saint.
When snooty mean girls taunt Pearl Grimes (Erika Coleman), a kid from the other side of the tracks, Ave Maria gives Pearl a job and helps out Pearl’s family to the point where the Grimes family starts to feel as if they’ve won the lottery.
Judd does capable work. Goldberg quietly swipes scenes, reminding us she could act before she became best known for trading opinions on “The View.” They’re swimming against the tide.
By the time we get to the final, borderline ludicrous moments in “Big Stone Gap,” I wasn’t even surprised by the overwhelming sappiness of it all.