People Need to Stop Swooning

Rating: 6/10 (26 November 2005)

I don't get what makes this film great. I'd say it was good, but not great, if I felt that way, but I'd venture to say it's not even good. Phoenix and Witherspoon are great actors, amazing voices, chemistry... WHO CARES?
I'd love to watch the two of them in concert, that'd be great. But this is a movie. And great acting does not a movie make.
A movie is supposed to have a story. Man has bad childhood, Man gets Married to someone, finds a new gal, gets addicted to speed, new gal helps him, they get married. That's not a story; that's framework.
Singing between plot points does not cut it. Watching Phoenix lie on the ground half- conscious, get up and fall down again for 45 minutes, is not interesting. The first 10 minutes, I'm rooting for him. But if he doesn't try new things, to help himself or have something happen until his gal locks him into a room for a month, I'm checking my watch and waiting for the cliché to be over with.
Now, maybe this aspect of his life was cliché. Maybe the man was a walking cliché. But I doubt it. As the music producer said early in the film (paraphrasing), What are you going to sing the minute before you die that's going to say who you really are?
In other words, who is this character, what makes him different than Jerry Lee Louis? Ray? Any of the other cliché movies where a singer has a bad childhood then success then stress then speed then sadness then salvation then story ends?
I learned not much about Johnny Cash. Learning his Dad was a jerk and his gal stuck by him didn't do squat for me. I want to learn something in this movie that I can't learn by reading a 3 sentence summary of the film.
Expect more, guys and dolls. Don't let hype and the fact that they spent more money promoting this film than they did shooting it fool you. Don't let them cash in on his recent passing and the Hollywood hype. Have a nice day.