David Thomson

“Her work in Tootsie was clever, gracious, and appealing—no more than a dozen others could have managed.”

David Thomson
A Biographical Dictionary of Film
Third Edition (1994), p. 420

Generally, however, Thomson was a great admirer of Lange's work of the period. I am attempting to lead with his quote, though, since to some extent I agree with him, but for some moments such as her reading of the reconciliation line at the end, "...Do you still have that little yellow dress...?"

Stephen Schiff

“…. The best of the supporting players, though, is Jessica Lange, who brings something dangerous and spacy to the character of Julie; she reminds one a little of Tuesday Weld. It's not a well-written role: at times Julie is glib in a gratingly literary way, and at others she just sounds vacant. But Lange shows us the turmoil behind the shifting eyes: she must have recognized that Julie was in danger of coming off as a dummy, and so she's chosen to make her inarticulate instead, churning with inexpressible desires; she suggests hidden depths, distant edges and textures. Lange is slender, with a swanlike carriage and a regal neck, but there's something of the towheaded scamp in her face, a mischievousness that can seem chummy one moment and predatory the next. We know exactly what Michael sees in this woman, and we also know how easily she could destroy him.

“It would make a certain sense if the movie ended with that destruction, but that would be a tragedy, not a comedy. And Tootsie ends instead on a note of wistful fantasy that's mawkishly reminiscent of The Graduate…. It's a sweetly naive suggestion, a reversion to the pipe dream that in order to win a woman, all you have to do is be Sensitive. If only it were so simple….[consider filling in ellipses, as well as removing] Tootsie is sadder but more sensible in an earlier scene, at a swank East Side party. There Michael glimpses Julie from across the room, and, knowing she won't recognize him, approaches her on a starlit balcony. Gazing at her against the shimmering skyline, he can't control himself, and he blurts out the come-on that Julie once told Dorothy she always wanted to hear from a man--something about how he won't bother with role playing and fancy lines, how he wants to be frank: you attract me, why not make love? Whereupon Julie throws a drink in Michael's face. Lange gives the moment a terrible aura of sadism and power; watching Michael sputter and gasp, she's not the sweet little bunny who confides in Dorothy. She taunts Michael with her eyes, letting her hips sway slightly, a snake charmer seducing a cobra. She's woman as sexual warrior, battling man as snuffling sexual beast: they are natural enemies. And here, in this darkly funny, almost malignant scene, Tootsie's subversive truth floats to the surface….”

Stephen Schiff
Boston Phoenix, Dec. 21, 1982

Andrew Sarris

“Enter Jessica Lange’s Julie in a throwaway smooch in long-shot transit with Dabney Coleman’s patented male chauvinist pig. Exit Jessica Lange, but who was that blonde bombshell? Let it be recorded for the year 2022 that in the year 1982 a bedazzled reviewer for The Village Voice suddenly decided that Jessica Lange was more a knockout than Frances Farmer ever was, that she was everything Marilyn Monroe was supposed to be in Some Like It Hot, and a great deal more besides, that she lit up the screen with so much beauty and intelligence that she and Dustin Hoffman were able to transform what might have petered outinto a tired reprise of Charley’s Aunt into a thoroughly modernist, thoroughly feminist parable of emotional growth and enlightenment. It is here that Tootsie intersects Victor/Victoria most felicitously. Significanlty, the two best American movies of the year could not have been made in 1942, or even 1962.”

“What is particularly amazing about Tootsie is that every performance has fallen into place in perfect rapport with the overall conception…. I must confess that I, along with a lot of other people, was waiting for Dustin Hoffman to fall flat on his heavily rouged face. Instead, he has soared with Jessica Lange into the stratosphere of redemptive romance in a rare display of mutual enhancement….”

Andrew Sarris
Village Voice, December 21, 1982
[my copy of review is incomplete]

Pauline Kael

“When Jessica Lange appears, the movie changes … to something calmer, and perhaps richer. She has a facial structure that the camera yearns for, and she has talent, too. Her face is softer here than in Frances; her Julie is a dream girl, and she’s like a shock absorber to Michael. When he, dressed as Dorothy, sees her, some of his irascibility melts away. Julie has honey-colored hair, and a friendly smile; she looks freshly created—just hatched, and pleasantly, warmly spacy (enough to be deeply impressed by Dorothy’s high-principled talk about the theatre). Jessica Lange helps to keep the movie from being too frenetic. There is none of the usual actress’s phoniness in her work; as Julie, she says her lines in such a mild, natural way that it makes perfect sense for Michael to stop in his tracks and stare at her in wonder. The picture is marvelous fun.”

Pauline Kael
New Yorker, December 27, 1982
Taking It All In, 432

David Denby

“Hoffman and Jessica Lange provide a lot of the heart. Dustin Hoffman has become so redoubtable a star because he embodies vulnerability and drive in perfect proportion. He has the knack of making everything he does seem perilous, and so audiences feel protective of him and root for him (the one time they couldn’t—when he played a slimy habitual criminal in Straight Time, one of his best performances—the movie bombed.) Lange may be heading for the same kind of stardom. Slipping at her white wine, depressed and wistful yet rapturously beautiful, Lange is soft and curvy, with an easy swiveling roll to her hips as she walks. She’s like Marilyn Monroe with brains, Kim Novak with class; she doesn’t project what those two icons did—that intoxication with their own beauty that was as infuriating as it was provocative; she’s responsive and concentrated, using her looks to create a character.”

David Denby
New York, Dec 27, 1982-Jan 3, 1983

Molly Haskell

“[Michael] had hoped Dorothy would be more of a “dish”—something on the order, perharps, of Jessica Lange’s adorable angora-pink actress….

“Jessica Lange, tremulously beautiful, is the most exciting star to emerge since Marilyn Monroe, but she has more talent and backbone than Monroe ever had. She and Hoffman complement each other in the most extraordinary way, as Dorothy receives the gift of shared intimacy in return for which she provides Julie with a lesson in female gumption.”

Molly Haskell
Playgirl, April 1983

[a little hyperbole? How many stars had emerged since Marilyn Monroe?]

Stanley Kauffmann

Get Kauffmann—“Lange is competent”