It's 1980, and Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time. Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover, and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour featuring some old hands from her early days playing honky-tonk bars in Washington State and Nashville. She yearns to bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last, and most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about a betrayal in their childhood.
The Farewell Tour is indeed a redemption tale. But its seemingly predictable arc is disrupted with plenty of smart misdirections and subtexts. Like a particularly sharp country song, it takes cliches and untangles and renews them ... Clifford gives Lil a straight-talking, scrappy voice. She’s hard-working and unsentimental ... Clifford’s emotional acuity is matched by her grasp of country history.
Full of marvelous period details... The Farewell Tour covers a huge amount of ground, with a correspondingly large number of supporting characters, a sometimes dizzying array ... Lillian herself is an appealing mix: determined and hard charging, blustery and often unable to get out of her own way. Like a country ballad, The Farewell Tour offers a bittersweet testament to the healing power of old love, long friendships and heartfelt songs.
