Jessica Lange doesn't do her own singing as country legend Patsy Cline, however that hardly matters because the cadences of her speaking voice are musical. Lange hits some husky, lusty low-notes as the Virginia-born singer who met second husband Charlie Dick (Ed Harris) in 1956 while performing in a local bar, later staying by him through thin times (her pregnancy forcing her off a tour, his stint in the Army after being drafted) and tentative success (a hit record, "Walkin' After Midnight", which she first performed on a TV talent program). Robert Getchell's script has some crackling dialogue, but the episodes of Cline's hard struggle for country-western success as well as her tempestuous marriage to hellraiser Dick are needlessly stretched out; there's too much struggle and too much temperament, and the film begins to seem like an uphill climb (it's exhausting). For a major production with A-list talent, "Sweet Dreams" also looks a little drab and ordinary, without the location flavor of an earlier bio-pic, "Coal Miner's Daughter". Oscar-nominated Lange matches up well with Ann Wedgeworth as her mama, and her angry love for rascal Harris is well conveyed, but the highlights of Patsy Cline's career are tucked away in the folds of the domestic dramaturgy. **1/2 from ****