At 152 Minutes, "Ray" Is Too Short (I Mean That)

Rating: 9/10 (3 November 2004)

What an incredible, remarkable, wonderful musician Ray Charles was! Born into the appallingly vicious racism that characterized the South of his youth, in his case Florida, deprived of vision before hitting his teenage years, the precocious, brilliant, self-driven Ray Charles (he dropped the family name of Robinson early in his career) crafted a uniquely American musical idiom, a fusion of blues, gospel, jazz and...pure originality.
Jamie Foxx comes as close to being his character as any actor or actress has done in a biopic. Foxx balances Charles's developing self-confidence and stardom with penetrating but not distracting scenes of his nearly fatal devastation from drugs. Ray Charles wasn't a simple tickler of the ivories and balladeer. Foxx projects the persona of a man guilt-ridden over the drowning death of a younger brother but who was determined to climb high as a performer and also enjoy the illicit rewards - drugs and women - that can come with success.
"Ray" portrays a man of musical genius and limited personal insight. No intellectual, only through his music did Charles escape an ordinary existence. But escape he did. Wavering between loyalty to early accompanists and supporters and submitting to seduction by interests able to advance his career through new affiliations, Charles's materialism fits well in the pantheon of American success stories, especially those from the world of entertainment.
The movie doesn't chronicle Charles's full life. Director Taylor Hackford, also co-writer, starts with the child on the verge of entering a lifelong darkness and takes the adult (chronologically if not always behaviorally) into the 60s, a period of turmoil for black musicians, a microcosmic mirroring of a rapidly, often violently changing America. Charles was no Paul Robeson - he took quite awhile to announce abandoning his supine accommodation of the pathology of "Jim Crow" but when he did it the country took notice and it had an impact.
The Ray Charles many of us know from his later years was a guest of presidents and a solo performer at great events in important venues. "Ray" takes us up to that stage. Without preaching, Hackford elides Charles's transition from being number one on the "Chitlin' Circuit," the dismissive name for black venues, to his smooth, high tech, high octane shows before ecstatic and increasingly white audiences. The shift is subtle, the implications clear.
Charles's addiction took him to jail and narrow brushes with possible felony convictions. His withdrawal from heroin was horrendously painful and Foxx makes viewers squirm as his character battles demons and delusions in a thankfully successful attack on the monkey on his back.
Ray suffering, routinely betrayed wife, Della Bea Robinson, is given a front and center rather than supporting role through the joy and agony skillfully reflected by Kerry Washington. She's a fine actress.
The score? It's Ray Charles, baby!
Had Charles not died earlier this year I have a hunch he would have really enjoyed seeing "Ray." And, yes, I do mean "seeing" because Charles's blindness opened up his other senses in ways we can only marvel at but never fully comprehend.
Special kudos go to Sharon Warren as young Ray's struggling, tough and loving mother and especially to very young C. J. Sanders whose achingly touching portrait of young Ray merits a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
If Foxx doesn't have an Oscar nomination for this anguished and triumphant performance, I won't be attending the ceremonies next year.
9/10