Blur the line

Rating: 6/10 (14 January 2006)

This is not an homage piece, a la 'Ray.' There are too many praise-worthy aspects of the biography left out of this for that to be the intent. This one is about performance, and its relationship to real life. About walking the line, the fine line between the two.
The gist is that June and Johnny live their "real" lives, then allow that experience to overtly reflect in their performances on stage. And sometimes the performance drives the real life, culminating in a marriage proposal (and acceptance, finally) in the middle of a performance. All aspects of their public images are deeply rooted in experience, exaggerated and replayed on stage.
But between "performance" and "reality," which is which and is there even a line between the two? How much does performance play a role in our marriage proposals, our troubles, our joy? Our "real lives?"
--An aside. Reese is not a good actress. She's all head and hands. All exaggeration. The style of a stage performer transplanted into films. But here she plays a stage performer, which fits nicely.