BLUE SKY
A film review by Raymond Johnston
Copyright 1994 Raymond Johnston
Dir: Tony Richardson Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Lange, Powers Booth, Carrie Snodgrass
After sitting on the shelf for several years due to Orion's financial difficulties, British director Tony Richardson's final film has gotten released. Richardson was once one of the "angry young men" of British cinema. His work includes LOOK BACK IN ANGER, THE LOVED ONE, TOM JONES, and the occasional Hollywood project like THE BORDER.
Richardson always tried to find the human element to his stories, tried to tell compassionate tales of middle-class struggle. When the ad campaign for BLUE SKY described a "Manchurian-Candidate" type conspiracy film, I thought that Richardson was a poor choice for such a story. Again, though, it is a case of a distributor trying to mislead the audience. BLUE SKY is not a paranoid cold war conspiracy film. There is a minor subplot near the end that has been edited into a neat ad campaign, but the film is really about a dysfunctional military family trying to get things together.
Once you stop waiting for the conspiracy to turn up, the film is quite enjoyable for what it is. It has flaws to be sure. The concept of a dysfunctional military family is fairly much of a film cliche, but Richardson manages to show some things that have not been seen before, and make the characters at least seem human.
Tommy Lee Jones is a military nuclear scientist, whose less than right wing stance has hindered his career, and Jessica Lange is his movie star wanna-be wife, whose open exhibitionism has also caused its share of scandals. Lange gets a chance to develop a full blooded character, a woman who seems so full of anger at her lost dreams that she is bent on self destruction. Jones, in relatively laid back performance, juggles his waning career and two adolescent daughters as he tries to also deal with his marriage and the Atomic Energy Commission. It is out of this last element that the conspiracy ad campaign has been cobbled. Forget that angle. As a conspiracy film, BLUE SKY is second-rate. As a family drama, BLUE SKY scores much better, with some fresh scenes and excellent performances.
Cris O'Donnell, the student from SCENT OF A WOMAN plays Power Boothe's son. BLUE SKY was filmed before, and he appears younger than in his previous role. The inevitable teenage love story has some sweet and one explosively funny scene.
If conspiracy films are your bag, rent Abel Ferrara's BODYSNATCHERS, Alan J. Pakula's PARALLAX VIEW, or Sydney Pollack's THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. They deliver what the ads for this film promise. If you like good actors in a decent enough drama, give BLUE SKY a shot.
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