The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What’s a movie you’re surprised you enjoyed?

There are quite a lot of these, actually, as I’ve been going through some filmographies and knocking off some classic “must-sees” that I wasn’t entirely looking forward to. Turns out most of those are “must-sees” for a reason, even if they didn’t initially appeal to me. Along those lines, I’m going with Nashville. It was the third or fourth Robert Altman film I got to in my New Hollywood marathon last year, and while I liked all the others, to one degree or another (more so The Long Goodbye and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, less so M*A*S*H), I still wasn’t particularly looking forward to Nashville. I mean, it’s about a bunch of Nashville-based country music performers converging on the city at the same time as a major political rally. I’d be generous if I described myself as apathetic towards both country music and politics.

But Nashville transcends its setting, weaving together stories of individuals with perfect balance and pacing, letting us into their lives, their joys, and their heartaches. Altman is known for his ensemble work, and though I admittedly haven’t seen all that many of his works yet, I don’t know that any of them will be able to surpass this. It’s incredible how well-drawn each of these characters are, despite the short amount of time the film is able to focus on any of them – none of them are caricatures, though all of them do represent some facet of the music scene (and sometimes stand in for real-life singers and musicians). In addition to being perfectly-crafted, it’s also a joy to watch throughout its extended running time. It was pretty easily one of my favorite films that I saw last year, and I look forward to getting even more out of it in the many times I will certainly rewatch it.

The aspect ratio isn’t quite right on this clip, but the sound is better than the other ones on YouTube.