Jessica Lange stars in a period drama about a family moving to a military base, and she quickly becomes part of a cover-up involving nuclear bomb tests.Lange won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Actress, along with the Golden Globe Award and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award. So it seems appropriate to address her role, which is sort of polarizing.Typically a main character has to be likable for a film to work, and it is hard for Lange to be likable -- she is morally loose, embarrasses her husband and seems to have a general disregard for her family and children. As the film progresses, she makes an effort to redeem herself, but will it be enough? Tommy Lee Jones is also good, playing Lange's supporting character. He goes through a range of emotions, which is interesting... though the scene that would usually be called Oscar-worthy is just sort of sad and disappointing. (I can't say what it is because it would ruin things, but those who have seen the film will know.)

It's the 60s. Nuclear engineer Capt. Hank Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones) monitors radiation hazards in the Army. His wife Carly (Jessica Lange) is wild and flirtatious. They move with their daughters Alex (Amy Locane) and Becky from the South Pacific to Fort Matthews in Alabama. Hank works under Col. Vince Johnson (Powers Boothe) in underground nuclear testing. Alex starts dating the colonel's son Glenn (Chris O'Donnell). Two cowboys accidentally get irradiated from a test. Carly has an affair with Vince. Vince tricks her into committing Hank into the mental ward in an effort to hide the affair and the cowboys' irradiation.Jessica Lange flirts between sexual napalm and utter madness. Despite the craziness, she has great chemistry with Tommy Lee Jones. It could easily go camp but she makes it perfectly believable. TLJ shows some real passion. The family is dysfunctional but their connection is undeniable. The other parts with the military and nuclear testing do seem a little weaker. In the end, this is all about Lange.

"Blue Sky" might have 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 home 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 quite 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. But there are too many ambitious ideas cranked out in the final stages, and the editing darts around trying to round off scenes which are squashy and dramatically unfulfilled. It isn't the fault of the actors; the movie becomes so hectic in its plotting that the puny returns we do get (and the overall lack of vision) are not enough to satisfy. "Blue Sky" bites off more than it can possibly chew. **1/2 from ****

The film is about the relationship of husband and wife, their troubles and how they cope with it. It also had a side plot about underground nuclear testing, which I don't think was that powerful or had that much of an impact for it to carry though as the finale, which also seem to be wrapped up uneventfully.But the main story is their troubled relationship, and how through good, bad and worse they get through it with each other's support. Jessica Lange's performance as an unstable woman was amazing, not over the top in which it would have been typically done, but was portrayed truely and its fine nuance conveyed the subtle change in her mental state.