Thoughts on Sweet Dreams

 

via IMDB

"They got four singers backing me up today, big ones. They're just gonna down me out. Hell's bells."

Well, there you have it, folks, the one moment of artistic integrity in Sweet Dreams. Patsy Cline (Jessica Lange) is opposed to recording "I Fall to Pieces." What she really ought to be fighting is being stuck in a boring biopic that's way too dependent on letting the soundtrack move things along. I guess that's to be expected when you're telling the story of a musical legend, but still. Screenwriter Robert Getchell and director Karel Reisz bring nothing new to the table. And, sorry Jessica, but too often I'd think about which other actresses you looked like (I decided on Paula Prentiss) rather than your embodying Patsy.

Patsy's already got a few toes in the door by the time she meets Charlie Dick (Ed Harris). He never gets involved in her career, which Dreams depicts with an unwelcome detachment. I don't know if this came about after it was decided that Jessica wouldn't do her own singing (she lip syncs to Cline's recordings), or if the flaws were there when Getchell was writing, but they aren't resolved. There's potential with a performer putting in the grunt work to make her way from and too often back to "every shithouse between here and Kansas City," but it's usually eclipsed by Patsy and Charlie's tortured love story.

"White?"

"What."

"White."

"What are you talking about?"

"Want to see if you say 'black.'"

I don't think screenwriters and directors have to like their characters, but there should be some respect. Especially if you're making Oscar bait. Patsy and Charlie come across as hillbillies. You don't need to parody Sweet Dreams, like Walk Hard was for Walk the Line. In scenes like Charlie urging Patsy to say how much she loves him when they're dancing in the rain, poor Ann Wedgeworth (as Hilda, Patsy's mother) constantly alternating between homespun wisdom and shock, or the belated "here's what makes Charlie tick" scene, Dreams is doing just fine when it comes to unintentional comedy.

Dreams is a curiously intimate movie. Wedgeworth and the other actors aside, it's carried by Harris and Lange. Since I rarely felt anything from the musical numbers, it was a bit like watching the world's most tasteful drag performance.

"You know something, Charlie? ... You can't go to your grave saying you weren't ever loved. Cause no matter what happens to you for the rest of your life ... right now, my god, somebody loves you. Totally."

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Let's go spend some money!"

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $9.1 million on a $13.5 million budget, this opened outside the Top Five and came in at No. 90 for 1985.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "There isn't the sense of a well-shaped structure in this movie," according to Roger Ebert. "There's no clear idea of what the filmmakers thought about Patsy Cline, or what thoughts her life is supposed to inspire." David Denby: "Her greatness is presented as a given, something achieved without much struggle." Dreams is "haunted by a ghost that undercuts it at every turn," People wrote. "The ghost is not Cline's but that of Coal Miner's Daughter." Pauline Kael: "(Reisz) doesn't step back from Patsy; she's taken on her own terms."

-- Critic's Corner, Jessica: "Sultry, nervy, delicate and altogether amazing," People raved. She got to "display the rollicking, warm-blooded vitality that is very much her own," Janet Maslin wrote. David Edelstein, Rolling Stone: "You don't expect emotional realism in this kind of movie; you do expect a fabulous performance by Jessica Lange, and she surpasses expectations." Kael: "Lange's body lives up to the sound ...  (she) has real authority, and the performance holds you emotionally."

-- Awards Watch: Jessica scored Dreams' only Oscar nod. The 1986 Academy Awards included a musical number led by Teri Garr. Teri later wrote about seeing "the insufferable Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard" smugly watching her perform.

-- I purposely saved Daughter until my post-review thoughts. Like Dreams, it includes Cline's 1961 car accident. The decision to apparently not rehash material brought me a little childish mirth. As Patsy is seen leaving a hospital room to get her bandages cut off, I called out at the screen, "Bye, Loretta."

-- Hey, It's ...!: David Clennon as Randy Hughes, James Staley (the Grand Canyon desk clerk in National Lampoon's Vacation) as Gerald Cline, a completely unrecognizable P.J. Soles as Wanda, an absolutely recognizable John Goodman as Otis and Bruce Kirby as Arthur Godfrey.

-- Coincidence Corner: Before Patsy performs "Walkin' After Midnight" on Godfrey's show, an accordion player does Mozart's "Rondo Alla Turca." The same piece was featured in another of Harris' Oscar-nominated movies, The Truman Show.  

-- Memorable Music: The score is 41-36, still favoring pieces written for movies. I'm giving the crown to Patsy and her touring group singing "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms" while tired in their motel room and (somewhat reluctantly) "I Fall to Pieces" at the Opry.

-- "Hell, Charlie's always good, 'cept when he isn't."

-- Next: Krush Groove. On deck: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, To Live and Die in L.A. Coming soon: That Was Then... This Is Now, The Official Story.