The hero and the heroin

Rating: Null/10 (30 October 2004)

"Ray" is being touted as one of the best films of the year and an Oscar contender in that category. I would not rate it so highly. It is certainly a competent, well-made biopic, but a fairly standard and conventional one.
The film's analysis of Ray Charles' private demons seems to boil down to this: he shot heroin into his veins to deaden the survivor guilt of his younger brother's tragic death, and slept around with women to compensate for having been wrenched away from his beloved mama. This is a little too facile and perilously close to psychobabble.
As for his genius, talent and success, one supposes (along the same lines) that his blindness enabled him to hear more finely. There is one scene in the film where seven-year-old Ray becomes aware, for the first time, of the sounds of the world around him. I can only compare this to the moment in "The Miracle Worker" where Helen Keller (Patty Duke) realizes that W-A-T-E-R spelled in her palm is the fresh cold liquid Teacher spills onto her hand from the handpump.
"Ray" certainly demonstrates the range of his musical talent and his impact on music history. We see how he combines rhythm and blues with gospel, to the consternation of some who see the blend as sacrilegious, "the devil's music". We see his music cross over into pop and even reflect classical influences, as in "Color My World". There is one piece in the film ("What'd I Say?") in which I swear I heard echoes of The Doors' "Riders on the Storm".
Jamie Foxx is phenomenal as Ray Charles, but his is the only male role of any real substance. However, four actresses turn in equally strong performances as his mother, his wife, and two of his lovers.
The business about Ray Charles' refusal to play to a segregated audience in Georgia is of historical interest, no doubt, but seems to come out of left field and does not fit very well into the rest of the narrative. It's as if the filmmakers felt the need for a hero to counterbalance the heroin.
The film is a tad long (close to three hours), and I did find myself wondering where it was going and how it was going to end. Art, unlike life, cannot be messy and disorganized; it requires shaping and a sense of ultimate purpose. "Ray" might have burned a little more brightly if it had a sharper focus.