Even if you aren’t the type of Dolly Parton fan who finds A Smoky Mountain Christmas’s lesbian subtext to be as bountiful as the beloved entertainer’s talent—or other assets—you are likely to derive some amusement from Roddy McDowall (who last we saw in Flood!) sternly lecturing her about resisting “affection for the opposite sex,” as he puts it, in Unlikely Angel. That he does so as a slightly bitchy Saint Peter makes it all the better.
The two meet at the pearly gates after Parton’s bar singer, Ruby Diamond (“everybody says I’m a gem!”), dies in a car crash. Peter notes with some concern that Ruby was, overall, less than virtuous. Consulting his book, he elaborates: “All your life, you have done exactly as you wanted, gone where you wanted, said what you wanted. You have never thought of anyone else but yourself.” She doesn’t dispute this, nor is she shocked to learn that Uncle Clem hasn’t joined her mother and the rest of their family in heaven.
Peter offers her a chance to redeem herself by healing a grief-stricken family in the week leading up to Christmas. Ben Bartilson (Brian Kerwin, who I’ve loved since Torch Song Trilogy) has drifted apart from his children after the tragic death of his wife, devoting all of his energy to work. Young Sarah (played by future sex cult leader Allison Mack) and Matthew (Eli Marienthal) spend a lot of time alone, when they aren’t scaring off a string of nannies. Ruby’s deposited on their doorstep with little more than a suitcase, a guitar and an aw-shucks smile.
“Are you sure she’s a nanny?” Matthew giggles, glancing at her décolletage.
“She’s a little late for Halloween,” grumbles Sarah, a surly 13-year-old.
Ruby is quick to realize that Peter’s correct—theirs is a family in trouble. Ben’s too busy to talk with the kids, encouraging them to email him instead. He lacks the greed or coldness of Susan Lucci’s Ebbie, but is roughly as generous with his time. Equally appalling to Ruby is the family’s lack of Christmas spirit. Their family traditions died with their mother, who made handcrafted ornaments for the children each year. Frustrated by her assignment, Ruby wanders into a church hoping to chat with Peter and finds him hosting bingo night.
“How am I supposed to help this family?” she asks. “I didn’t exactly do a bang-up job with my own life.” But trading honky-tonks for homemaking, and eventually halos, comes naturally to Ruby, who resorts to merry mischief (cutting the power to their electronic devices) to coax Sarah and Matthew from their rooms. She bakes cookies, sings carols and builds trust with the kids, even as Sarah’s minor acts of rebellion threaten to stop Ruby’s progress in its tracks.
While the Bartilson home is warmed by the spirit of the season, things heat up between Ruby and Ben. The would-be angel’s immortal libido causes Peter such consternation that he resorts to increasingly dramatic measures to remind Ruby to leave room for Jesus. (He begins by gently tipping a family Bible from a bookcase, and eventually rouses her from a torrid dream by thunderously shaking her bedroom.) “Just my luck!” Ruby complains. “I finally meet the kind of man I can see spending the rest of my life with, and wouldn’t you know it, I’m dead.”
Unlikely Angel’s screenplay, by Liz Coe and Robert L. Freedman, is as gentle as an Anne Murray song, introducing nary a problem without a simple, heartwarming solution. Its greatest conflict is met with a “Doggone it, Peter!” from Ruby, whose attempts to reunite the Bartilsons go right down to the wire. Straining to fill its 92-minute run time, Angel tosses in a few of the requisite Parton musical performances, all lacking the pep of her Smoky Mountain Christmas tunes. It also introduces a tenderhearted colleague of Ben’s (Maria del Mar), who collects angel figurines and tells an approving Ruby, “You can never have too many angels looking out for you, I guess.”
There’s only so much that director Michael Switzer can do with such treacle, but that’s beside the point. (Switzer, whose filmography includes everything from the soapy The Woman Who Sinned to the suspenseful With a Vengeance and Betty White’s playful Annie’s Point, would direct LeAnn Rimes and Bernadette Peters in Holiday in Your Heart a year later.) If you’re going to watch Unlikely Angel, don’t do it for the story. Watch it to make the Yuletide gay with Dolly and her assortment of wigs, tragically ’90s wardrobe and trademark giggles. Enjoy McDowall’s fussy Peter, and consider it a gift that Lee Majors never rides up in a suede fringe jacket.
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Streaming and DVD availability
Unlikely Angel is available on DVD. You can also stream it on the free, ad-supported platforms FreeVee and Tubi.
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Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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