Superb Witherspoon Complements an Evocative Phoenix in Real-Life Love Story

Rating: 8/10 (12 December 2005)

What is most intriguing about the new Johnny Cash biopic is how Joaquin Phoenix does more of an impressionistic take on the Man in Black rather than the dead-on impersonation that Jaime Foxx did as Ray Charles, or going further back, that Gary Busey did as Buddy Holly. Although Phoenix lacks Cash's craggy features and full-throated delivery, there is enough resemblance vocally and physically for him to get away with it. Moreover, what Phoenix does very well is get under the skin of Cash's psyche through sheer intensity in director James Mangold's 2005 film. When he performs onstage, it is not so much the musicality that gets you but the often scary glare he gives as a tortured soul. Whether destroying a dressing room or feeling ill-at-ease with his stoic parents, it's a powerfully unrelenting performance that evokes Cash's spirit, albeit one that is sometimes too off-putting and humorless over the course of a 136-minute film.
Recent biopics seem to be following similar dramatic patterns. Especially in the early going, the movie bears a striking resemblance to "Ray" in treatment - a rural childhood, a demanding parent, a transformative childhood trauma, adultery, drug addiction. However, to Mangold's and co-writer Gill Dennis's credit, he does not go back and forth to Cash's childhood to make us understand his pain. Instead, he deals with it succinctly upfront and uses the periodic reappearance of his parents as the emotional link. The other aspect that works in the film's favor is the love story at the core. Cash's incessant, decade-long yearning for June Carter provides the spark of the film.
Reese Witherspoon takes advantage of portraying a real-life character less recognizable than Cash and inhabits June with an obviously deep empathy and an authentically Southern-fried sensibility. What remains consistent from her most recent films, for instance, her anachronistic Becky Sharp in "Vanity Fair" or her overachieving half-spirit in "Just Like Heaven", are the fierce intelligence and iron will that seem to be her growing trademarks. She also easily brings out June's natural kinship with performing (not only singing but comedy bits and playing the autoharp), and her duets with Phoenix onstage, especially "Jackson", are among the movie's best moments. Casting a fishing reel with aplomb or facing her Christian guilt over the first divorce, she brings a natural goodwill that's completely convincing. As the love story moves toward resolution with a family intervention and a romantic onstage moment, it's really Witherspoon's no-nonsense nurturing that attracts our attention more than Phoenix's doleful responses.
It's always a risky decision to go with the singing voices of the real-life performers or the actors portraying them. Some voices are so recognizable as to defy impersonation (e.g., using Ray Charles' original tracks in "Ray"). Neither Phoenix nor Witherspoon sang or performed musical instruments before being cast, but they bring such a great sense of showmanship that their vocal deficiencies simply don't matter. Credit needs to go to T. Bone Burnett for training them so well for six months. There are also terrific scenes with Cash interacting other legendary figures like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, the latter played with fiery mischief by Waylon Malloy Payne.
The movie has a solid supporting cast even if some of the roles falter toward stereotype, for instance, Robert Patrick simmering near a boil as Cash's cold father, country singer Shelby Lynne looking and acting dour as his psalm-singing mother, and especially Ginnifer Goodwin, who has to play Cash's first wife Vivian as a small-minded shrew. Like all-fact-based movies, the movie can also feel episodic, and it does sag somewhat in the middle as the film belabors Cash's amphetamine addiction. Regardless, even if you are not a fan of Cash or the Carter family, this is still fine Hollywood film-making with two actors going at their roles with real brio and Witherspoon, in particular, getting to the real heart of the story with conviction.