I knew going in that this was a kind of musical, albeit a very long one at two hours forty minutes. What I did not expect was how insanely complex and ambitious it is with its large cast of characters and multiple interleaving storylines. As you might expect, there are many, many musical performances in here but all of it is original music with satirical lyrics and apparently much of it was written by the actors and actresses themselves. It’s a little overwhelming at first as you don’t quite get what it is trying to do but it can’t be denied that it makes for brilliant political commentary.

In the US presidential election year of 1976 and Hal Philip Walker, the candidate for the alternative Replacement Party, is making surprising headway. John Triplette is in Nashville to prepare the ground for his public appearance and gathers various local stars to perform on stage. He persuades aging country music superstar Haven Hamilton by promising him support for his own political ambitions and uses lies to get diva Barbara Jean to perform even though her husband and manager insists on being politically neutral. Other characters include a folk music trio who are breaking up, a British woman who claims to be a reporter from the BBC, a teen groupie who is supposed to there to see her dying aunt but is more interested in the musicians instead, at least two women who are aspiring singers, a soldier who seems to be obsessed with Barbara Jean and many others. Each character has their own story but they meet one another repeatedly during various events leading up to the gala concert where Walker is supposed to appear at Nashville’s Parthenon.

It’s hard to imagine in the context of a musical, this truly is an epic film that makes full use of its extended running time. It’s rather overwhelming at first as audiences are primed to identify a main character and a main plot but this film is deliberately sprawling in its scope and happily jumps between characters and events. But there is a pattern to the overall sprawl: it’s a satirical, perhaps even mean-spirited, take on every aspect of the Nashville music scene. There’s the obvious confluence of celebrityhood and politics, celebrity worship and gossiping, the backbiting between stars who pretend to be friends to the public, how the industry eats up aspiring young starlets, how promiscuous male stars seduce women into having sex, the self-deprecating and yet vacuous song lyrics and so much more. All of these are fictional characters but they are clearly inspired by real people. For example, the trio in the film are an obvious stand-in for Peter, Paul and Mary. It’s no wonder that the real Nashville people apparently hate this film.

This kind of satire while not entirely unknown is rather rare these days. This one is all the more difficult for us to appreciate given how subtle some of it is and how much distance there is between us and what it satirizes. For example when the British reporter talks to the elderly companion of Haven Hamilton who is also the nightclub manager and she goes off on an extended spiel about John F. Kennedy revealing her obsession with the family, we do understand what it’s about but the impact on our generation is considerably lessened. Similarly a lot of the cynicism about politics and the entertainment industry that is prevalent here and must have made for a strong statement back then simply seems par for the course today. It’s still wonderfully entertaining to watch and one can’t help but be impressed with the script that manages to pull together so many disparate yet related elements but this isn’t something that is likely to make a strong emotional impact on modern audiences.

It is doubly fun to watch this just as the US election season of 2020 is entering its final stretches. It is also evident that characters like Triplette who the films means to show as an outwardly friendly but inwardly duplicitous political operator is so tame and harmless by modern standards. Even when one group insists that they’re lifelong Democrat voters and would never consider switching, they’re so nice about it. It truly was a kinder, gentler time then and no one involved in this film at that time could possibly have imagined that US politics could devolve into the venal and toxic mess that it is today.