Cielo azul

I have admired Jessica Lange's acting ability for years. She is able to convey a bimbo-like image with such intelligence and strength, an achievement that few actresses could pull off well. It's easy to see from BLUE SKY why Lange was chosen to play Blanche Dubois in the TV version of "A Streetcar Named Desire." She plays in this Oscar-winning role an emotionally unbalanced wife and mother named Carly, the type of woman that makes small-town wives fend for the safety of their marriages. She is very sensual, sometimes obnoxious, and definitely a show-stopper. Tommy Lee Jones is a nuclear scientist employed in the military during the early sixties, fearful of another meltdown. He also has to secure his wife's sexual appetites, which could easily get out of control, especially around a libido-driven sargent played by Powers Boothe. The nuclear storyline, almost a backdrop,gets in the way of the meat of the plot, that of the sensuous Lange and the two daughters. I'm not saying the actors in this film don't have power, they most certainly do, but they seem to be caught in a run-of-the-mill soap opera coloured by nuclear testing. Jessica Lange does have an award-worthy part to play, but it belongs with more powerful material, reminiscent of something like "Streetcar."

This film had some really interesting scenes that made me watch the movie twice but that was enough. The story overall is a bit too messy.

Jessica Lange was a hoot as the manic-depressive flirtatious wife of Army Major "Hank Marshall." Boy, poor Hank had his hands full with "Carly" as his wife. Lange plays the role a little over-the-top but that's what makes her interesting here. It turns out to be a military soap opera film, if there is such a thing.

The soap angle came in not just between the Major trying to control his out-of- control wife, but the couple's poor daughters who had to live with this under their roof. Amy Klempp and Amy Locane played the sympathetic daughters.

There's more to the story, such as incidental things like nuclear bomb testing but, believe-it-or-not, that takes a back seat to Jones and Lange's marital woes. Frankly. when I write this, over 10 years after seeing the film, I wonder why I bothered watching this twice. I was a big fan of Jones, and maybe that was it, plus Lange looked good back then playing the blonde bombshell. This is one of the last films in which she looked this good as her "Tootsie" days were starting to wan.

Just as Shohei Ohtani cannot, by himself, take the Anaheim Angels to baseball greatness neither can Jessica Lange lift this film into the realm of goodness. Tony Richardson's last movie remains, after twenty nine years and despite Ms. Lange's powerful performance, a decent but flawed work.

The flaws, of course, can mostly be laid at the word processors of scenarists Rama Laurie Stagner, Arlene Sarner and Jerry Leichting. Not content to tell a simple but moving story of a troubled marriage between a too extroverted, aging Southern belle and a too introverted intellectual, set on an oppressive army base (are there any other kind?) in the South in the early sixties...think "Reflections In A Golden Eye" meets "Woman Under The Influence"...they concoct a truly ludicrous, 1970s, anti government paranoia tale complete with underground nuke tests, fallout, psychiatric incarceration and a kindly, bearded AEC official coming to the rescue (unfortunately, way too late to save the film). And so, by act three, we have left the relatable realm of relationships and recognizable emotions for Hollywood liberalism at its most amok. Or, to put it another way, we've gone from a good, gritty Tony Richardson film to Alan Pakula or Martin Ritt on a bad day.

Bottom line: Richardson shoulda gone out with the kitchen sink, not the paper shredder. Give it a C plus.

PS...Almost as depressing as Richardson's too early demise is seeing the star of "The Last Picture Show", twenty one years after that masterpiece, reduced to a non credited cameo as a cowboy with radiation poisoning.

It is always a pleasure to watch giants in some film which is driven not by effects , explosions and rap-style language but by old-fashioned story and , simply , eye-popping acting , and two main actors , Mr T. Jones and , specially , Mme J. Lange deliver this in full . This smaller , cheaper film deals with the relationships between the military personnel and their spouses , where J. Lange portrays perfectly a lascivious southern belle with too grand illusions of an acting career, who with her sexual escapades becomes a sort of house-hold name in all the bases her husband is sent to , she being slightly neurotic , while tensions and constant arguments between the two are a norm , and their two beautiful daughters watch this in silence , being even more mature then their own mother . It is interesting to see Jones 's character always forgiving his wife , loving her completely , never hitting her , or calling her names .And when the viewer is almost certain that a typical and clichéd climax is inevitable , i.e. a fight between the couple with him stabbing his wife , the film takes a completely different turn , where Lange's character shows her southern true mettle and love for her husband, who becomes a victim of higher national interests . Briefly , a school of great , traditional acting ,light years away from today's self-proclaimed thespians with artificially rounded lips or feminine neurotic outbursts for no reasons , being on the same level as small children demanding a candy .

"Blue Sky" might've made for a great night of television had it premiered on HBO or Showtime as a cable-film. With somewhat reduced expectations coupled with the intimacy of watching the movie on the small screen, one might be inclined to forgive the film for its lack of scope. Set in Alabama in the mid-1950s, Jessica Lange plays an Army engineer's wife and the mother of two young girls who is tired of being dragged from one military base to the next. She harbors a dangerous, possibly manic-depressive side, and makes life difficult for everybody--leaving a trail of gossip and bad blood behind her. Tommy Lee Jones is her patient, loving husband, and Powers Boothe is Jones' newest Commanding Officer who sees only Lange's sexy externals and desires her. All three performances are very good (with Lange winning the Best Actress Oscar, possibly due to a slow year for women in film); however, the picture takes a wrong turn in its third act and finishes limply. Wolfish Boothe becomes a deceitful villain (as if being a cheating husband wasn't enough!), while Lange's volatile Carly is sent out on a limb to save her husband from the clutches of the ignorant, power-hungry government. Had the script stayed true to the character conflicts (which would have matched the film's modest budget), this may have been an effective little soaper. Unfortunately, too many ambitious ideas are cranked out in the picture's squashy final stages, the result being a dramatic film which is dramatically unfulfilling. **1/2 from ****