The entire enterprise is sentimental and predictable, which goes without saying. What pulls it all together is what pulls together everything Dolly Parton touches: heartfelt emotion, un-ironic portrayals of modest sincerity (Nettles and Schroder are particularly effective), and a gift for turning treacle into musical gold.
The movie doesn't always take itself seriously. ... But with its dual messages of "hold your families close" and "always be kind," Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love is ultimately as sweet as the Whitman's Sampler the Parton kids get to dive into.
Once again written by Pamela K. Long and directed by Stephen Herek, it's not quite up to the mark of its predecessor, whose strengths were in ordinary domestic relations and challenges--a Smoky Mountains "Waltons."
Enjoy Colors for what it’s worth--for the message, the music and Parton's benevolent spirit. Just know there must be a better movie to be made about her life than NBC is offering.
While the filmmakers behind the Parton Christmas franchise (among them veteran daytime soap writer Pamela K. Long) have sprinkled some genuine moments in the story and made a great hire in casting Nettles as the tenacious Parton matriarch, they have inadvertently made their subject, the charismatic singer herself, into someone whose life you’d rather not hear about anymore.