Amazing performances

Rating: 8/10 (3 March 2006)

If you'd told me, oh, a year ago that there would be this big-budget movie about Johnny Cash, and it would star Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, there's no way I would have been looking forward to seeing it. Joaquin Phoenix, the bad guy in Gladiator, as Cash? Reese Witherspoon, the cutie pie in Legally Blonde, as June Carter? It would have sounded like a flop borne of hubris and greed.
But Phoenix and Witherspoon turn in incredible performances, surely the best of their short careers and among the very best of the year. Phoenix IS Cash - singing the Man in Black's song in perfect imitation. Witherspoon is smashing in what's hopefully a breakout role for her, after so many fluffy, nondescript comedies.
Like most biopics, this is a story of redemption, of rising and falling and finding that those who remain with you in your time of need are the ones that should be kept around, their reluctance to do so be damned. We follow Johnny from his early childhood, including the tragic loss of his brother and the rejection of his father, to his opportune recording for Sam Phillips, and his meeting, courtship of, touring with, and proposal to June Carter. In between, we get a pretty good glimpse, courtesy of Phoenix's stunning performance, of the ghosts that haunted Cash throughout his life.
It's no surprise that the music is so good, since they're all old Cash tunes, but the fact that Joaquin Phoenix is singing them does offer up a bit of a curveball. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon so completely immerse themselves in the well-known characters of Johnny and June that one would almost expect some caricature, but there's nary a dishonest, insincere beat to their incredible work here.
Director James Mangold, who previously directed Girl, Interrupted, hits no false notes here, where even the slightest misstep might have had rabid Cash fans clamoring for his head on a spike. Vividly shot, the film is highly evocative; you feel at times that you're crawling inside Cash's brain, the atmosphere is so intense.
And although this is a movie about a man's rising from his own ashes, one of its core themes is also its most wonderfully realized, that of true love and friendship. June Carter stands by her man through all of the bad times, even when his family, particularly his shrewish wife, abandon him out of selfishness and spite. From the first moment Witherspoon and Phoenix share the screen, you can tell they're made for each other, with dazzling chemistry that ultimately lifts the movie to its greatest heights.