A throwback to marital melodramas of yesteryear, Blue Sky, a long-on-the-shelf Orion picture, deserves a good shot at a theatrical life before being placed in video land.
Grade: B-
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Theatrical poster
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This 1991 production was the last film directed by Tony Richardson, and it happens to be one of the more creditable efforts of the latter part of his career.
Old-fashioned but well-acted, “Blue Sky” is character study of a long-married military couple, who go through midlife trouble. Jessica Lange plays Carly Marshall, the wife of Army scientist Hank Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones), whose irrepressible sensuality and wild spirit can’t be reined in even by the military. It’s the early 1960s, and at the outset, she friskily teases and tempts the local officers in Hawaii with her Marilyn Monroe look. One of the military wives says to Carly: “Women like you are the reason men like women in the first place.
When Hank, Carly and their two girls are transferred to a base in Alabama, the provincial, confining place sends Carly into a deep funk. Hank is the only person who understands and can calm Carly down, but her violent mood swings are alarming, especially to her teenage daughter Alex (Amy Locane).
Predictably, Carly gets carried away on the dance floor with the camp’s commanding officer, Vince Johnson (Powers Boothe), causing embarrassment for all involved. When Hank is sent to Nevada to observe an underground nuclear test, the door is opened for Vince to court Carly. Unfortunately, their late night tryst is witnessed by Alex and her new beau, Vince’s son Glenn (Chris O’Donnell).
Jessica Lange became the second actress in Oscar’s annals to have won the Best Actress award after winning a Supporting Actress Oscar before (for the comedy “Tootsie, in 1982).
The first was Meryl Streep, Lange’s peer-competitor, who first received the Supporting Actress in 1979 for “Kramer Vs. Kramer,” and then the Best Actress Oscar for “Sophie’s Choice,” in 1982, the same year Lange was nominated for the lead award in the biopic “Frances.”
Credits:
Directed by Tony Richardson
Screenplay by Rama Laurie Stagner, Arlene Sarner, Jerry Leichtling; Story by Rama Laurie Stagner
Produced by Robert H. Solo
Cinematography Steve Yaconelli
Edited by Robert K. Lambert
Music by Jack Nitzsche
Production: Orion Pictures, Robert H. Solo Productions
Distributed by Orion Pictures
Release date: September 16, 1994
Running time: 101 minutes
Box office $3.4 million (domestic)
