Falls short of the genius it portrays (Some Spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (29 October 2004)

You know the filmmaker is in trouble from the moment that the very first shot in the movie - a bottle tree (typical in many southern African American yards of this time period) - is incorrectly presented. Bottle trees didn't hang from strings; they were placed over the branches! So, I groaned under my breath b/c if he couldn't even get THAT detail correct, then everything else is suspect.
You know the filmmaker does not even get the black experience - no, that's too limiting b/c something tells me that he wouldn't get ANY kind of experience of any American growing up in the 1930s - when the next shot portrays JIM CROW SEGREGATION as some "polite" bus driver informing the black riders that the bathroom is located out "in the bushes" (and thus saving the director from showing any kind of "whites only" or "coloreds only" signs at the bus stop.)
Sigh. Two strikes from the FIRST TWO shots!
But, the soundtrack is fabulous! And Jamie Foxx did a wonderful "impersonation" of the musical genius.
Still, this movie could have been so much more. I find it rather depressing that musical geniuses - like Ray Charles, like Billie Holliday - get totally cheapened and flattened out because of Hollywood's lack of imagination. Neither such artists created conventional music, and as such, their lives should be presented in unconventional ways. But, we don't get that! We get the same old: poor black soul grows up in poverty; poor black soul has a gift for music; poor black soul gets recognition but shoots up on heroine along the way.
Now, I'm not saying that this life history DID NOT happen. Obviously their lives did follow this path. But, it takes a great deal of imagination to wonder what would cause an incredibly talented black artist (like Ray, like Billie, like a host of other folks) to shoot up, to get strung out on drugs, like heroine.
Is it part of the creative process? Is it that their life is unbearable so that they have to use certain forms of escape? What?
I never got WHY Ray started drugs in the first place (and a combination of all kinds of things - being treated with disrespect b/c of his disability, being called "Boy" or "N..." all the time when he's in the South, being worn out with tons of music gigs, a host of stuff - would further along the narrative).
Then, there's just stuff that I wished the filmmaker had focused on instead b/c I had so many questions:
His mom is dirt poor! Where did she get the $$ to send him to blind school? He obviously knows how to read braille .. who taught him? Was he the only colored boy in a blind school? What was that experience like, being in total darkness, having just lost your younger brother and now your mother sends you away? And as for his later stance on segregation when he chose not to perform in Georgia... um, it took some black protester urging him on and then hearing one of the white hosts telling that black man to "move his black a$$," for him to decide he won't perform in a segregated hall? Give me a break! I can think of tons of reasons, from his own lived experiences in Jim Crow South and especially traveling cross-country in racist America why Ray would take a meaningful stance against playing for a segregated audience!
But those are many of my issues with this movie. All the women are ridiculously stereotypical. And Ray Charles' complete disregard for them makes me seriously question whether all his great hits were a result of his sexual relationships. That "Hit, the Road Jack" scenario is just ridiculous! I, on the other hand, would have chosen a far more political scenario (some demeaning, humiliating encounter with Jim Crow racism, for example) to come up with that song. But that's just me...
Knowing that all the great blues and jazz musicians used SEX for a metaphor to talk about all kinds of social and political issues, I never would have imagined that sex itself was the impetus (sure, as a womanizer, that's his frame of reference, but let's not think that a song about sex is JUST a song about sex!)
As for the "church" sound that Ray introduced into his music, would it have hurt if we heard more conventional gospel from some of the church services he went to (which he obviously DID) so that we can get a sense for why he was so willing to blend the secular with the sacred?
I could go on and on. What I will say is: the music alone is worth the price of admission (plus Foxx did a great job with what was given to him), but don't expect genius from a movie about a genius. So sad.
The filmmaker is soooooo not worthy of this project!