Two and a half hours of pure greatness

Rating: 10/10 (19 March 2006)

I am a big fan of movies and even a bigger fan of movies that deal with music. One of my favorites is Almost Famous which takes us on a mind-blowing adventure through the early sounds of hard rock in the seventies. But this movie is a great movie with infinite depth.
Walk the Line starts off with a heartbreaking preface on Cash's life as a kid. We see him go through hardships including the war and making end's meat early in his career. The movie just simply drifts into something I cannot explain. I have never seen a movie that took me to such a place. It's the kind of movie that makes you realize how great film-making can be.
Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny Cash as if it were Johnny Cash himself. When I saw Phoenix on screen, I saw Johnny Cash. And it's rare for me to see actors get in depth with the people they are playing especially in biopics. But Walk the Line gives us three very powerful performances. One of the heart-wrenching performances is given by Ginnifer Goodwin who plays Johnny's battered first wife who isn't all in tune with Cash's musical life. Goodwin is definitely an underrated actress who will hopefully get her due here in years to come.
Now I must give absolute praise to Reese Witherspoon who plays the refreshing performance of June Carter who would be a hard role to play but Witherspoon nails it dead on. Before WTL, I wasn't a big fan of Witherspoon because of the movies she made but this proved me wrong. She gives one of the greatest performances to ever embrace the screen. I have never seen a performance so pure and so golden that it shattered what I thought of her. Her presence on screen is rare in cinema. I cried when she got her Oscar because I was grateful of what she had accomplished and what she offered to the audience.
Walk the Line goes down as one of my all-time favorite films. It's a refreshing breath of fresh air that I really needed. Phoenix should of got the Oscar and Goodwin should of been nominated. I love this movie! Great soundtrack, too! ****/****