HONEYSUCKLE ROSE (1980) *** A portrait of a Texas too beautiful to have never existed, and an exposé of love's treatment at the hands of the free love generation. Willie Nelson is effortless as himself, and Jerry Schatzberg regularly leans the camera in too close for that grainy pseudo-documentary feel. It's a simple tale, as so many are, including the ones in Willie's songs (lots of covers here, actually). Why would he cheat, with Dyan Cannon waiting at home? Part of the answer may be Amy Irving, but most of it is "Hell if I know, they just do." Dyan and Amy couldn't have been anyone's idea of country gals before this but they're both sympathetic, beautiful, breathtakingly natural. The band smokes and drinks authentically, though their language is unnaturally clean. Ironically or not the best scenes are probably those between Willie and Slim Pickens and a Colt .45 and a bottle of tequila and a tour bus...that's always been the backbone and the background of songs like these. Of course there's nuthin' right about a country song unless someone has gone terribly and sadly wrong...and I guess they figure this is one of the pleasantest ways to get there. Whiskey river take my mind!