Jessica Lange said it took six years for Long Day’s Journey Into Night to journey from stage to screen. Was it worth it?
My very first trip to London, in 2000, I had the great good fortune of seeing Lange as Mary Tyrone in the West End revival of Eugene O’Neill’s masterwork at the Lyric Theatre, directed by Robin Phillips, and co-starring Charles Dance, Paul Rudd, Paul Nicholls and a then fairly unknown Olivia Colman. I was absolutely captivated, especially by Lange. I’ve always regarded this work as one of the best American plays ever written.
I had seen the 1962 Sidney Lumet film starring Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell, numerous times. It’s a powerful adaptation, sticking very close to the author’s epic length. And Hepburn earned the lone nomination the film garnered.
There have been other incarnations in all mediums over the years, including Colleen Dewhurst as Mary, but Lange’s Mary stayed with me, haunted me.
The 2016 Broadway revival, directed by Jonathan Kent, brought Lange back in top form opposite Gabriel Byrne, Michael Shannon and John Gallagher, Jr. She deservedly won a Tony for her stunning work.
Shortly after that production, a screen version was planned, although it wasn’t announced to the public until the creatives had already wrapped filming in late 2022. Kent would be making his feature film debut as director. The script was adapted by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, The Balusters), cutting quite a bit of the original text. And the cast boasted Lange, Ed Harris, Ben Foster and Colin Morgan. A 2023 release was expected. But never happened.
Financial struggles caused post-production to be delayed two years, and the world premiere screening occurred at the Dublin International Film Festival in February of 2025 and went on to play the Glasgow Film Festival that same month. The few reviews were glowing, but it did not attract a distributor until super recently when Quiver secured the rights and it was quickly announced on September 11th that LDJIN would be released September 25th. Whiplash! There was a special screening at Film at Lincoln Center in New York on September 14th, but all of it felt incredibly rushed.
Did Quiver want to capitalize on the premiere of American Horror Story 13? Possibly. But whatever the reason, this gem is finally seeing the light of day, albeit in a strangely muted fashion. Lange has been doing the talk show circuit for AH13 and making sure she talks about it, since it’s a very personal project to her and she considers Mary Tyrone the greatest role she has ever played—the pinnacle of her career.
Still, the film’s long-years-journey-to-screen-and-release had me slightly worried. There were only four reviews on Rotten Tomatoes—all very positive—and there was a Slant rave that appeared after the Dublin premiere.
I also kept reminding myself that the terrific Blue Sky had languished in limbo yet eventually won her a second Oscar! The Tony Richardson pic was completed in 1990 but because of the bankruptcy of Orion Pictures, it wasn’t released until 1994. Lange’s brave and bold performance couldn’t be denied despite the fact that very few audiences saw the film. That gave me hope.
That was Lange’s sixth Oscar nomination, she won her first Oscar for Syndey Pollack’s Tootsie (1982) and there have been none since. Crazy when you consider her extraordinary work in Julie Taymor’s Titus in 1999.
Could she get her seventh nomination?
The answer is a resounding YES, if AMPAS members actually see the film.
She certainly deserves consideration.
Kent’s version of LDJIN is a wonderfully faithful, if truncated, version of the O’Neill masterpiece, astutely adapted for the screen, centered on Mary—as it should be. The movie contains rich and rewarding turns by all the actors, but it’s Lange’s vanity-free, tour de force.
LDJIN takes place in 1912 at the Tyrone family summer cottage, on the shoreline. And although Kent and Lindsay-Abaire provide some business for the actors to do (pruning bushes, a lot of drink pouring), they smartly keep things claustrophobic and let the camera and actors allow us access into this compelling and emotionally heartbreaking family drama, rich with regret, anguish, longing and adoration. The abridged text drops clues to who each of these characters are and how they’ve hurt, and in some cases near-destroyed, each other.
In any incarnation, casting is key to audiences either being wholly absorbed into the character-led narrative or alienated by these deeply flawed humans.
Luckily, this ensemble brings such grace and authenticity to their roles, we can’t help but fall under their spell and hope they can find a way to get through the night.
The men are led by Harris as the sad, miser, patriarch, James Tyrone. It’s a reunion of sorts with Lange. They made the 1985 Patsy Cline-biopic Sweet Dreams together. Maybe their past work together helped in their creating this believable, if delicate bond. There is love there no matter how each has disappointed and hurt the other.
Foster is excellent as the jealous, womanizing, boozing Jamie.
Morgan is rather a revelation as Edmund. Like Happy in Death of a Salesman, this role tends to be a taken for granted fourth banana, even though the love and concern for Edmund is what drives all the other characters. Morgan does such a fine job of letting us see Edmund’s continuously conflicted feelings that attention must be paid. The young actor has done wonderful work in the past on TV (The Crown) and in film (Benjamin), but this is his best performance, most extraordinary work yet.
And speaking of extraordinary. Lange is now over two decades older than when she first played Mary and she’s managed to etch an even more psychologically complex, vulnerable, damaged woman than before – someone who cannot quite cope with the potentially tragic realities in her world so she begins to slowly retreat into her past, with the help of some morphine. Lange’s beguiling work is nothing short of astonishing. If the film is seen, and it should be, she must be in the awards conversation.
And what Kent and Lange are able to accomplish that stage productions could not, is depicting Mary’s journey in the home she so hates. We see her upstairs and elsewhere in the house, restless, listening to conversations, reacting—fighting the floodgates of the past. So, we get to experience more of her struggle, her capriciousness, which makes her harrowing yet transcendent final monologue all the more devastating.
It’s as if Lange had taken all the facets, the nuances, the complexities of her previous Mary incarnations and used them to discover a more elusive, more beatific Mary—who at one time wanted to be a nun but gave up the idea to marry James. And in that final spellbinding moment confusion blends with clarity in the most enigmatic of ways. She’s a tower of strength, yet as fragile as a small child. She may be lost, but she is also at peace.
Watch our VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA LANGE.
LDJIN opens today in Los Angeles, additional markets to follow this Fall.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Mr Lumet's 1962 version is how it earned Cannes Best Actor(s) and Actress for (Nearly) all of its wonderful cast.
Now onto the 2025 version, PLEASE release this. Come one!