Good performances, unoriginal biopic

Rating: 5/10 (15 September 2005)

I went to a screening of this movie at "The Toronto Film Festival" in anticipation of seeing something wonderful based on all the early reviews of this film....particularly for the performance of Joaquin Phoenix. The film begins with Cash getting ready for his performance at Fulsom prison in the late 60's and we then proceed to the telling of his story with a formulaic flashback to his childhood ... proceeding thru his career, marriage and relationship with June Carter. The storytelling and direction is unoriginal. Within the confines of the story this movie was trying to tell...I felt that the director could have shown us some moments of brilliance or originality...but chose a very conventional style instead.
As for the performances....Joaquin does some good acting here but for the most part a "one note" performance. He does an admirable job at singing the Cash songs but I felt the film should have kept the original recordings since Cash had such a signature style and I found it hard to accept Joaquin singing them. I think lip-syncing like Foxx did in Ray would have worked better.
The best performance of this film belongs to Reese Witherspoon. Her performance as June Carter is charming and she shines in every scene she is in. I was pleasantly surprised. I am positive she will get a nomination for an Oscar for this role and she has enough screen time for the lead category. Reese and Joaquin as Carter and Cash have a wonderful chemistry. The interaction and dialogue between these two was very enjoyable.
Overall good performances in an unoriginal formulaic biopic.