The Man In Black Lives!

Rating: Null/10 (7 February 2006)

There's a traditional path to be trod in the pop bio-pic: the rocky road from impoverished childhood trauma and underestimation through the first flushes of success and excess, and thence to either redemption through the love of a good woman or untimely death. It's a deeply furrowed lane populated by the likes of 'Lady Sings the Blues', 'The Buddy Holly Story', 'Elvis Lives!' and last year's 'Ray'. 'Walk the Line', James Mangold's account of Johnny Cash and his pursuit of the love of his life, June Carter, follows this map step-for-step, yet still manages to be genuinely touching.
Given that Judi Dench's cliché ridden performance in the awful 'Mrs Henderson Presents' is honoured in the recent Oscar and Bafta nominations we should, just perhaps, be wary of thinking that these lists are arbiters of quality. In the cases of the central performances given here by Joaquim Phoenix and the ever-dependable Reese Witherspoon, such plaudits are genuinely deserved. Witherspoon ups-the-ante a notch or two, giving us a quality mix of vulnerability and sassy Southern 'pep', and Phoenix has a troubled feral quality that does Cash proud. More importantly, there is a genuine chemistry between the pair on screen, aided no-end by Mangold's decision not to have his leads lip-synch to recordings of Cash and Carter. Theirs was a relationship based on music, and their scenes on-stage are amongst the best in the film, chiefly because we can see performers performing. They are hardly sound-a-likes for the real couple, but there's sufficient parity to make their characterisations convincing. Phoenix's rendition of the opening of the 'At Folsom Prison' concert is absolutely electricand I say that as a big fan of the Man In Black.
There are, I suppose, a few too many rapid-fire 'cameos'  a cocky Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and Elvis ("That Elvis boy sure likes talking' poon, Johnny!")  but these at least capture the hectic pace of the 1950s touring programmes. More could have been made of Cash's truly long-suffering first wife: Ginnifer Goodwin gives a solid performance, but narrative emphasis being on Johnny and June, she is reduced in some scenes to being little more than an obstacle  a plot-device to be circumvented to get to the happy ending. I, personally, would have liked to see more of (the continually underestimated) Robert Patrick as Cash's gruff, dismissive father. These are deficiencies, to be sure, but they pale to near insignificances in the light of the central performances by Witherspoon and Phoenix.