The six-part series looks at the life and love of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, who are known as the “President” and “First Lady” of country music.
If you grew up in the South in the 1990s as I did, you probably heard a lot of George Jones and Tammy Wynette on the radio and on your parents’ CD player. Once you heard “Stand By Your Man,” you couldn’t get it out of your head for the rest of the day. Even if you hadn’t heard of George and Tammy before this series was announced, you’ll want to watch George & Tammy. It’s a great piece of TV that tells a complete version of this sad true story in just six episodes. The series follows Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain, who play Jones and Wynette, from the time they first meet until Wynette dies in 1998, over 30 years after they met.
For those who don’t know, Jones and Wynette were the President and First Lady of country music. They became close in the late 1960s and ruled the country charts for the next 20 years. As the movie George & Tammy shows, the couple went on to make dozens of chart-topping songs together and on their own after their rocky relationship.
About the Base of the story
The series is based on the book The Three of Us: Growing Up With Tammy and George, which was written by their daughter Georgette Jones, who also works as a consulting producer. In the first episode, Chastain’s character Tammy says, “I think you have to live a song to make it good.” In the following episodes, which are named after six of their most famous songs, George & Tammy show how their lives are reflected in their music and how the truth behind the lyrics is sometimes very sad. At the same time that the story influences the music, the way Jones and Wynette’s music is used in George & Tammy makes the story more interesting and makes the emotions stronger.
George & Tammy is first and foremost a love story. This, along with the fact that it is based on a true story, is what makes it such an interesting drama series. Chastain and Shannon do a great job of showing how deeply, passionately, and sometimes painfully Wynette and Jones loved each other. George and Tammy love each other more than anything else, despite everything that comes between them and what they do to each other. In the end, what they had in common was real and would last. Chastain and Shannon’s chemistry is captivating, and it works well with the story. It also helps explain why the people they play with sometimes make choices that don’t make sense.
Even though there is a lot of heartbreak in the series, it is also mostly about love. George & Tammy tells a very human story that makes you care about the characters right away and want them to get together and do well. Even though their story really does end in a sad way, George & Tammy plays on your emotions in a way that makes you want this version of their lives to have a happy ending. The show is also surprisingly sexy. Throughout the episodes, there are many close-ups that show how much Jones and Wynette love and care for each other. It never feels like a way to take advantage of her, and most of the scenes focus on her pleasure in a way that embodies the female gaze.
George & Tammy
George & Tammy tells an honest story about addiction, both to drugs and alcohol and to each other. The love story is beautiful and sad, and the story about addiction to each other is just as honest. George struggles with alcohol for most of his life, and he tries and fails many times to get a handle on it. Tammy, on the other hand, dies young because she is addicted to painkillers. George’s drinking is a big part of the whole limited series, and it’s what makes these two characters fight with each other. Tammy’s dependence on painkillers happens more slowly. What starts out as a need turns into her only way to keep going.
George & Tammy doesn’t try to hide the bad parts of their story, but it does make them more real by showing how much pain they both went through in their lives. We spend a little more time in Tammy’s point of view, and she is set up as the more sympathetic of the two, but it hurts your heart to see the difference between happy, sober George and the angry, reckless alcoholic he became because of his fame. So much of Tammy’s life happened without her permission. George & Tammy shows how sneaky that loss of control is, and it also shows how strong she was to keep going until she couldn’t.
Every part of this series shows how much the author likes Tammy Wynette, and by the end, you’ll almost wish you had met her in person. Both Georgette Jones’s work behind the camera and Chastain’s excellent performance make it clear how carefully her story is told. In particular, Chastain’s love for Tammy’s story shines through, and because of that, she gives yet another award-worthy performance that is the best of her career.
Shannon also does a great job of capturing George Jones. He shows the extremes of his personality while still being sympathetic and keeping the story moving at a good pace. Shannon and Chastain do musical numbers in each episode that fit the subject matter. They capture the spirit of George Jones and Tammy Wynette while also making something unique, honest, and really impressive. Jones’s “Why, Baby, Why?” will definitely make it onto next year’s Spotify Wrapped playlists when they sing it as a duet.
George & Tammy is shot and directed beautifully, with a clear focus on the small, personal details of their story. John Hillcoat is best known for directing Lawless and The Road, but he has also made a number of music videos, which work well for this series. Hillcoat makes a picture that shows both the grandeur of being a superstar and the fragility of love and heartbreak. Almost every shot is strikingly interesting, which gives the story an extra layer of meaning. Every part of George & Tammy fits together, and every actor and actress on and off screen did their best. Hillcoat’s direction gives the good times moments of warmth and joy that go well with the cold horrors of the bad times.
Overall, George & Tammy is both interesting and fun to watch. Chastain shows how versatile she is as an actress, and by the time the limited series is over, she’ll probably have a head start on next year’s Emmy Awards. It would be a shame if she and Shannon didn’t at least get nominated. Even though George & Tammy was first thought of as a movie more than 10 years ago, the long process of making it into a limited series has made the final product even better. With six episodes, the show is easily one of the best musical biopics to come out in recent years.
