The Movie in Black

Rating: Null/10 (2 February 2007)

That Walk the Line is a showcase for raw-horsepower performances, white-hot music, and a pervading sense of gloom goes without saying. I don't think I've ever watched a music-driven biography that initially so depressed me. I popped the disk back in it's case and felt mentally and physically blue. My God, what a fascinating, talented, multi-faceted waste of an early life! And yet, to paraphrase Paul Harvey, you don't know the rest of the story.
It really is the story of Walk the Line, Johnny Cash's trial by fire, his crucible that brought him health and love and admiration in his later life, that gives that later life meaning and sweetness.
Now, I know he was deep and a deeply tortured soul, even after he cleaned out and sobered up, but watching the movie gave me an appreciation for the level of wellness he attained in his life after the movie.
Bravo to Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon for their careful and dynamic embodiment of Cash and his long love and wife June. By their good works, after I recovered from the hangover of feeling depressed, I began to appreciate that Walk the Line is a memoir, not an autobiography.
The rest of the story is not so much a happy one, but a completed one. Walk the Line is a great, great movie--the storm before the calm.