Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

In a sordid tale of faded dreams and family feuds, Tennessee Williams delivers perhaps his greatest play. Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Lange star in this award-winning adaptation.

It sounds like perfect casting: Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones do one of Tennessee Williams's most powerful works. But this filmed stage play doesn't quite fulfill the promise. Lange certainly has all the right ingredients: the sensual moves, the fluttering neuroses, the scheming-with-a-smile, but it doesn't quite ring true. It's as if the star and her director failed to make the full transition from stage acting to the smaller, more nuanced acting demands of film. Jones is badly miscast as Brick--the character is mopey and riven with insecurities, while Jones's forte is garrulous confidence. It feels like he's acting with a muzzle on. Rip Torn is terrific as Big Daddy (his scenes with Jones are the best in the piece) and the rest of the cast is all up to the game. Tennessee Williams reworked the script for this American Playhouse production, restoring some sexual frankness lost in earlier productions. The piece has some real fireworks, and not just in the places you might expect. Lange and Jones would team up again to better effect in the 1994 drama Blue Sky. --Geof Miller