The Easy Kind

Katy Chevigny’s hybrid documentary is an immersive observational film about Elizabeth Cook — a country music singer with a voice like sweet tea on a Sunday afternoon. But there’s more to it than meets the eye here, and plenty of questions and surprises. Cook has flirted with fame, having had her “moment” come and go more than a few times. She’s comfortable with herself as an almost-big music star and a gracefully aging musician in an industry obsessed with youth. Chevigny’s fluid camerawork and inventive storytelling creates an easy intimacy as she follows Cook’s career, creative highs and personal lows, and we marvel as she fearlessly navigates the scene in the country music mecca of Nashville. There is some drama: is Letterman really doing her podcast? Is another big opportunity about to surface? And what’s with that hunky young handyman? (Telluride Film Festival)