Refreshing, and not all it could have been

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 2004)

Movies in general have gotten so bad lately, that I seldom go anymore. So it was with some trepidation that I braved this 150+ minute epistle.
Let's get the best thing about this film said first: Jamie Foxx does one amazing job as Ray Charles. No question, it's an Oscar-caliber performance.
The next best thing about Ray is the direction. The stories of Ray's music, the setting, the time period, and his personal trials are intertwined in an almost-perfect ballet.
Very good performances are turned in by the supporting cast, the camera-work is great, and the music is pure, magical Charles. We get to see the origins of each major piece as its given its own part in the story. This is a wonderful biopic.
So where does it fall down? **spoiler here.** In only two places, I think.
First, in the multiple depictions of Ray as being cold and heartless, to the point of losing the audience's sympathy for him. There are way too many examples of that than I'm willing to type. See the film and judge for yourself, but at one point I found myself reaching the point of not caring too much about him as a human being, in spite of his great struggles.
The second weak point, alas, was in the ending, where there was so much possibility for the film. After two-and-a-half hours, it suddenly, abruptly, was over. After a single scene that's almost a repeat of an earlier scene that resulted in just more of the same for his life, he goes to rehab. The emotion and the struggle to finally reach that decision and make that commitment are simply glossed over -- a huge deficit for a film that had been so careful with the emotional picture it painted up until that point. (From the way this is done, we may even be led to assume he made the rehad decision for purely altruistic reasons.) Next, his continuing struggle with guilt over his brother's death and the promise he made his mother to never become a cripple is resolved in one over-the-top, maudlin scene that just isn't worthy to be a part of this great film. Then it just ends, with not enough retrospective on the rest of Ray's life.
The great majority of this film is great stuff. Don't miss it. I just wish its potential had been fully realized