To me, this movie is perfection.

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

It is a performances centric movie

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I was certainly of a torn mind when it came to Jessica Lange's performance in the first half. By that point, she had already gone pretty over-the-top, but to degrees I don't think she needed to. Either way she was entertaining camp so I wasn't sure how i felt about it overall. By the end of the film, Lange had been able to play other notes, to not just be over-the-top and loud, but also have sone quietly graceful moments. It's a good performance, but I'm not sure if I think it's a great one. It's crazy seeing Tommy Lee Jones so young, but he's pretty good here, internalized in a way we've come to expect from him, but he's effective. Overall decent, if unmemorable, film.

Jessica Lang plays a crazy wife to an Army Officer (Tommy Lee Jones) with 2 daughters who is upset because they have been relocated to a Southern base for his latest assignment. Lang plays the role well and she is the highlight. Tommy Lee Jones is OK here but his best part of the film is early on.When they first get on the new base, Lang has a fit and Jones tries to shield the daughters from their mother. After this high point, his role starts to decline as Lang takes over the movie. The relationship between Lang and the daughters is strained at best, insane at it's worst.Meanwhile, Jones is sent away on the Blue Skies assignment. First her daughter and the son of the base commander raise a riot by accidentally detonating a Grenade by an abandoned hut. Then, they catch the base commander having relations with Lang there. The older daughter forces mom to call Jones and confess. The Base commander then sets up Jones by putting him (with Lang's permission) into the base hospital on drugs and helpless.Lang opens up her husband's Blue Sky notes and comes up with a plan to try and get her husband free. What is in his notes is the key to her plan. She is not as crazy as you might think. There are a couple of holes here, especially because since the kids catch Lang & the base commander, it is hard to understand why just taking dad out of action is going to protect their secret. The son's reaction, must less the daughter's to this seems wrong.While the plot is a little off, it is a pretty decent film to watch.

There is an old Calypso ditty that states "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never take a pretty woman to be your wife." If you want to have a career in the Army, you might also want to avoid bi-polar women.Tommy Lee Jones (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) was an Army Major, a nuclear engineer working on atomic tests, that had a gorgeous wife who was a little crazy. Jessica Lange (Broken Flowers) was awesome as his wife and won every award that year for her performance. She deserved every win in a movie that was a testament to love. No matter how crazy, Major Marshall (Jones) was there for her because of his love. And her love brought her out of her disorder long enough to save him.This was director Tony Richardson's last film and he made it a winner all the way.

Jessica Lange's strong acting abilities are wasted in a rather unlikely role. She portrays Carly Marshall, a woman with a mood swings problem. Her problem becomes quite evident when she can't handle the station transfer that's being given to her military scientist husband, Hank (Tommy Lee Jones). With the talent involved, this should've been better and some script rewritings could've helped.