Hard to avoid the comparison with Ray

Rating: 7/10 (18 April 2006)

Walk the Line is a good film, presenting some of the highlights of the life of the great Johnny Cash and the love of his life June Carter Cash. Reese Witherspoon is INCREDIBLE, and Joaquin Phoenix is as good as he usually is in this well made biopic. For me, the music was a real highlight of the film, and the distracting similarities between the life of Mr Cash (or at least the aspects of it chosen for display in this film) and that of Ray Charles sort of took away from the overall plot.
Ray made me a Ray Charles fan, though I had been familiar with Mr. Charles music for about 35 years, until the film, I didn't appreciate him properly. I have been a Johnny Cash fan for about 25 years, but from my perspective, Walk the Line was simply not as powerfully done as Ray.
The Parallels between the two men's lives are bizarre, and though I know it really isn't fair to compare two whole lifetimes, I can't help thinking that some of the choices made in the selection of lifetime thresholds for WTL may have been influenced by what worked in Ray.
Mangold's direction creates a very polished though somewhat Hollywood film, and the editing, script and pace of the film are all very strong.
Nevertheless, this is a solidly entertaining and well made film, worth seeing for Witherspoon's amazing and lovable performance and the music alone. I also very much enjoyed Joaquin's excellent imitation of Cash's stage presence and facial expressions, but felt that his vocal impressions were just a tad over-rated.