Blue Sky (1994)*****

Seen on 21-9-2009 - A Star Movies Film
Cast: Jessica Lange (Carly Marshall), Tommy Lee Jones (Hank Marshall), Vince Johnson (Powers Boothe), et al
Dir. : Tony Richardson ("Loneliness of Long Distance Runner," "Tom Jones," etc)

Jessica Lange won Oscar for Best Actress. 1 Oscar, 3 wins, 3 nominations!!!

There have been many stories about the adultery among service wives and about the flagrant use of power in the army hierarchy to cover up mess. But this one differentiates itself by using the matrix with its imaginative and mature exploration of the dangers as well as the possibilities of flighty romanticism and realizing this idea in all its human particulars in a very credibly told story.
The great achievement of this movie is in its conception of the hopeless but not irresponsible romantic character of Carly and realize its human form by working out the details from the beginning through its consistent end. In order to do this the movie creates a convincing social matrix, builds credible relationships and situations. Its brilliant achievement is in the mise en scene of its idea.
Carly, married to an army nuclear scientist, with two teenage daughters, is the spoilt daughter of a rich man hopelessy given to romantic notions about life that it's all song and dance with little thought abt her responsibilities as a housewife with two teenage daughers. She sunbathes topless and daydreams that she could have been a Briggette Bardot or a Marilyn Monroe, but she didn't mean to be a slut that she could be easily mistaken for. Her innocent socialising with men often appears to be scandoulous and sometimes with disastrous consequences that her understanding husband keeps averting. As her husband puts it, she drives the family to the edge with her outrageous behavior. Her free dancing with men could be easily mistaken for flirting she didn't intend. Where ever she goes she makes them uncomfortable
When the movie opens, the Marshalls are shifted from Hawaii to Alabama because of her scandalous behavior. The base commander in Alabama, Vince Johnson at the officers' club finds himself doing a dancing with her that, as Ebert puts it, is "just this side of vertical foreplay." Eventually Vince schemes to take advantage of her innocent forwardness by sending her husband Hank away to Nevada to supervise undersground tests. When the whole thing blows over Vince arranges a cover-up in which he betrays her confidence in him to bail out her husband from trouble after hitting him. As commander of the base camp he has her husband sent to a mental hospital where he is being given electric shocks to unhinge him. Shocked Carly now wakes up from her dreamworld and sets to work for getting her husband rescued from the hospital and also nail the wily commander.
--The very human, very loving and intelligently understanding husband is the very antidote to his wife's innocent and thoughtless romantic flights. His defence of her to her tennage daughers: "What we call love is really the exchange of energy over time. It's simple quantum mechanics." For him she is like water which may take many shapes such as ice, vapour, etc. but its basic properties are good. That is, Carly is basically good and her behavior is eccentric. Her basic innocence is evident from her words she speaks to her husband after all the troubles she has caused: "It [her fling with the commander] means nothing."
IMDB summaryi
"Hank Marshall is a tough, square-jawed, straitlaced Army engineer and nuclear science expert, assigned to help conduct weapons-testing in 1950's America. Hank has become a thorn in the side of the Army, though, for a couple of very different reasons. He is an outspoken opponent of atmospheric testing, though his superiors hold contrary views and want to squelch his concerns...and his reports. The other problem is his wife, Carly. She is voluptuous and volatile, wreaking havoc in his personal life and stirring up intrigue at each new Army base."
Netflix Summary
"Director Tony Richardson's final film stars Jessica Lange in an Oscar-winning turn as Carly, the mentally unstable, promiscuous wife of straight-arrow Army engineer Hank Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones). When the Marshalls get transferred to a dismal Alabama post, Carly -- whose unbridled behavior has cost her husband promotions -- makes a move on the base commander (Powers Boothe), who promptly dispatches Hank to Nevada to conduct nuclear tests."