Blue Sky

CARLY’S ILLUSIONS

A sort of cut-rate trial run as Blanche for her Broadway and TV versions of A Streetcar Named Desire, Jessica Lange’s Carly in Tony Richardson’s Blue Sky says to a military spouse, “A woman’s charm is mostly illusion.” As wife to lifer Tommy Lee Jones, the ravages of inconstancy, the relentless transfers from one base to another throughout the years, have made Carly not certifiably bonkers but a little cracked and bitchy. Her daydreams of wanting to be another Ava toreroing in The Barefoot Contessa or a Marilyn wowing the guys in a Seven Year Itch dress are defense mechanisms against the dreariness of military living; her bold, flirtatious dancing a plea for attention and physical need. (There’s not an officer around who wouldn’t want to pump some jizz into her chassis.) She’s longing for escapist fun: when the base commander’s mouse speaks about a show she and the other wives are putting on, Carly festively throws up her arms and giggles, “Do you need any dancers?” She’s the first to throw confetti—even before the party’s started. Lange, who counterfeited being on the verge in Frances, shows she really can do edge: pitching a fit over yet another dump she has to make a home, Carly runs to the family car, smashes into a jeep and ends up at a local PX nearly losing it as she touches bolts of fabric. The script gets soggy with social, environmental and moral consciousness—Tommy suffers the after-effects of post-military McCarthyism—and the movie loses some staying power. Lange hangs in, valiantly giving credence to the melodrama: Carly’s mildly dotty despairing leads her to unintentionally victimize Tommy before finally gathering her wits—using her instability as weapon without embarrassment. At end, dragging it up as Liz’s Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she wins back her Brick and her smile as she exits the base is as wide as the convertible she’s beaming in. Lange got the Oscar for a movie taking roughly four years to get out of the gate may seem to say more about her competition, which, granted, wasn’t much. In fact, Blue Sky finished principal filming 14 months and post production at least 6 months before Richardson died from AIDS in November, 1991 and, one month later, Orion Pictures filed for bankruptcy, the latter action preventing its release until financial matters were sorted out. Lange’s win confirms small pictures with very good things in them, even if they are delayed for years and/or don’t make a dime at the box office, are still worthy of peer recognition.

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ralphbenner@nowreviewing.com