Best Actress: Jessica Lange

 I love Jessica Lange but I always forget Blue Sky exists until I think real hard about it.

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That's not a dig at her obvious talent; Jessica Lange was and is such a fascinating performer. This is the woman that won an Oscar for Tootsie, has starred in many a classic, is a vaunted stage performer and successfully stars in just about every Ryan Murphy television series (almost all of which I'm too chickenshit to watch, but, despite the lambastation from critics and classics fans, Feud: Bette and Joan is always a hit in my household). 

Blue Sky has an interesting story, as well. It was filmed in 1990 and then was shelved for a couple of years while Orion Pictures went through bankruptcy proceedings. Its director, Tony Richardson, died shortly after filming was completed. Tommy Lee Jones was not an Oscar nominee or winner when he made the film but by the time it came out, he had one for The Fugitive (well earned, imo). 

The film didn't make much of a box office splash, but it was a critical darling, and, as is often the case with modern Best Actress-winning films, led to the only real praise coming for its lead actress. Jessica Lange's performance was the only Oscar nod and therefore, its only win.

In the film, which is set in the mid-'60s, Jessica Lange plays a mentally ill military wife to Tommy Lee Jones's staid officer husband. She's a Blanche DuBois lite, flittering from manic to depressive episodes while sporting Marilyn Monroe hairdos and alienating her daughters, who see her as the man behind the curtain while her husband still views her as a wizard of Oz.

Throughout the film, Jessica's character, Carly, resists every impulse and urge to settle down in their new posting town, a run-down town so far removed from the freedom and fun she'd had on Hawaii, and creates chaos at every opportunity, both for herself and for the members of her family. There's a third act turnaround, where she uncovers a cover-up that her husband had been trying to whistle blow about, but up until that point, it's very much a showcase for Jessica Lange to play jaded, manic southern belle and to swing for every fence she can find. It never veers into caricature or camp, which is where an actress like Jessica Lange succeeds: she's believable, never cartoonish.

Jessica was nominated against Jodie Foster (Nell), Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv), Winona Ryder (Little Women) and Susan Sarandon (The Client). It is a great performance, I'm sure I would have voted for her if given the chance, but Winona Ryder as, in my opinion, the definitive Jo March in Little Women? I'd be hardpressed to overlook that performance.

DID I LIKE BLUE SKY? Not particularly, but I do love Jessica Lange!
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Did you like Blue Sky? What are your thoughts on Jessica Lange's Oscar win?

Keep up with all my Rewatching the Best Actresses posts here!