Jessica Lange

In Tootsie (1982), Jessica Lange gives Julie Nichols feelings we have to take seriously, even with Dustin Hoffman busy at the centre of the farce. She keeps the tenderness clear without losing the comedy’s rhythm. We were moved by Julie because Lange makes her feelings credible in a story built around a disguise. It is a performance worth remembering whenever her reputation for emotional intensity threatens to obscure everything else she does.

Her breakthrough paired Frances (1982) with Tootsie, after a debut in King Kong (1976) that drew dismissive notices. The two 1982 roles helped establish both the intensity and the lighter touch. Blue Sky (1994) drew on her ability to suggest turmoil through small physical details. Later, American Horror Story (2011) renewed her profile through several different roles.

Sydney Pollack’s ensemble in Tootsie helps explain why the gentler work succeeds. Editors Fredric Steinkamp and William Steinkamp leave room for Lange and Teri Garr to register alongside Hoffman, keeping the exchanges quick without hurrying past the responses. Dave Grusin’s music sometimes encourages tenderness that Lange has already supplied. The screenplay is less generous, giving a man too much authority to explain women’s experiences. Lange and Garr make us wish it would listen to their characters more often.

In Tim Burton’s Big Fish (2003), her Sandra Bloom brings a comparable warmth to the domestic scenes. The film is too pleased with its whimsy, and its family conflict sometimes treats doubt as a defect. Lange does not add to that insistence on being liked. Her presence lets those scenes settle, giving us a reason to stay with the family when the detours become tiresome.

Repeated casting as troubled women risks making audiences expect the same performance. The warmth in Big Fish and comic judgement in Tootsie are good reasons not to settle for that expectation. Start with Tootsie, and give her at least as much attention as the man in the disguise.