Walking The Line With Johnny (And Ray)

Rating: 9/10 (1 March 2006)

Watching this movie yesterday couldn't help but remind me, in a number of respects. to "Ray," a film out a year earlier. Both were biographies of singers of a similar era, the main difference between the color of their skin, Ray being Ray Charles, of course, and this movie about Johnny Cash.
Both singers (and films):
1 - had a brother who died early on in their lives which affected them for years and years; 2 - were made to feel guilty about those deaths even though there was no reason for that guilt; 3 - had adulterous affairs as their singing careers began to take off; 4 - became addicted to drugs and beat that addiction; 5 - made bold decisions regarding their careers that went against prevailing thought but turned out to be the right decisions; 6 - movies featured outstanding music and slick photography; 7 - movies were fast-moving and interesting to view all the way through despite being over two hours long; 8 - featured wonderful acting performances.
In Walk The Line, Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Cash, goes one up on Jamie Foxx, who played Charles, because Phoenix did his own singing....and he was very good. The same applies to Reese Witherspoon as "June Carter." Her singing talent surprised me. It makes the film all the more believable when you know the actors are actually singing.
I am not familiar with Ginnifer Goodwin, who played Cash's first wife, but I think she gets unfairly ignored in the publicity of this film. Perhaps the biggest surprise was seeing Robert Patrick as Cash's father. Wasn't this the same young, trim villain in Terminator 2, which wasn't out that long ago? How can this be the same guy?!!
I think this was the better of the two films, not just because of the realism but Charles seemed almost cold, no love in him, no commitment to any woman or his own kids, while Cash has a lot of more heart to him, even if it was misplaced at times.
That seems to be the major theme of the WTL movie: the romance between Cash and Carter. Unfortunately, that's my only complaint about this film. This movie glamorizes this affair between Cash and Carter just a little too much, manipulating the audience to the point where we all want this couple to live happily ever after forgetting that Cash was married to another nice woman with two kids. Yeah, some of the ugly parts of adultery are shown but not to the degree the sweetness of this illicit romance is portrayed. The movie does not send a strong enough message that the right thing to do is for Cash to be a good father and husband in the first place and for Carter to stay away from him - period. The worst scene in the film might be Cash's two kids crying their eyes out watching their parents fight. Adultery always kills the kids more than anyone, which is one big reason I was sorry to see the Cash & Carter affair so romanticized.
I'd have liked to have seen Cash's prison ministry detailed a little more since he was so faithful in that area, and his Christian testimony in general, which was very strong his last few decades, but the film didn't deal with those last three decades. Too bad, but understandable since there is just so much you can show in two hours. The filmmakers took the tried-and-true road of a romance story instead, which makes sense business-wise.
With all the goods and bads, the film succeeds on being a great piece of entertainment with fantastic music, acting, visuals and a guarantee to please a lot of people, almost as many as Cash did in his eventful life. He was an amazing man and a four-hour film about "the rest of the story" would have been fine with me.