SWEET DREAMS

SWEET DREAMS was the 1985 film biography of country and western singing legend Patsy Cline, magnificently portrayed by Jessica Lange, who delivers one of her most charismatic performances as the singing legend who rose from humble beginnings to become a country and western legend. Lange imbues a fire and spirit into Cline that is quite endearing and allows us a perhaps partly speculative look at the fire that drove Patsy to become what she did. There is a great moment when Patsy is meeting with a record producer and she is describing the kind of career she wants and he says, "Oh you want to be Kitty Wells?" and Patsy replies, "Hell no, I wanna be Hank Williams!" According to this film, Patsy didn't want to be a country singer, she wanted to BE country music. I also love the scene where Patsy is introduced to the song "Crazy" and says she can't sing this man's song and the producer explains, "Sing it the way you always do, Patsy...your way...let the words tell the story." Patsy slows the tempo, does it her way, and it became her signature song. Lange not only delivers a wonderful performance in this film, but she does one of the best jobs I have ever seen on screen of an actor lip-synching to another voice. Her lip-synching to Cline's voice is practically flawless. Lange also gets solid support from Ed Harris as Patsy husband, Charlie Dick and from Ann Wedgeworth as Patsy's mom. I don't know why this has always bothered me but I noticed that in COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, Patsy seemed to be a major character in Loretta Lynn's story but Loretta is not even mentioned in this film. Nevertheless, this is a warm and entertaining film, definitely a notch above the average film biography, thanks mostly to an extraordinary performance by Jessica Lange.