Dale Dickey takes center stage at Sundance in ‘A Love Song’

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Dale Dickey tends to get “those crusty roles,” as she heard someone once call them. A familiar, craggy face from films like “Winter’s Bone” and “Hell or High Water,” Dickey has long been a riveting supporting player in rural dramas. But in the Sundance entry “A Love Song,” Dickey, long a standout character actor, finally takes the lead. Dickey’s performance as a widower camping next to a Colorado mountain lake is terse, tender and human to the core. And it’s easily one of the most endearing of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. For Dickey, it was a leap of faith. She says she’s used to “supporting roles that pop in and out with chainsaws and rifles and things.”