Walk the Line opens in Folsom Penitentiary, where Johnny Cash recorded his best-selling 1968 live album in front of a rowdy crowd of hollering, foot-stomping inmates. It’s an appropriate beginning to the story of a man who—in this film at least—spent much of his early life in a prison of self-loathing caused by his older brother’s early death and his daddy’s disapproval.
Whatever personal demons may or may not have driven the Man in Black until his death September 12, 2003, one thing is clear in both this film and in Cash’s real life: June Carter was as much his salvation as the God that Cash praised in his gospel songs.
In a lot of ways, June Carter is also the salvation of this good-but-not-great movie. Played with verve and steel by Reese Witherspoon (who grew up in Nashville), she’s more interesting than Joaquin Phoenix’s Cash—something her real-life counterpart probably was too, despite the man’s towering persona.
Nevertheless, that indelible but somehow elusive persona is the point here, and Phoenix never quite captures it. Reportedly hand-picked by Cash himself, the actor gives an admirably earnest and hard-working performance (he and Witherspoon even learned to sing and play the instruments they use in the performance scenes), but it only hits perfect pitch during the Folsom scenes. His “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” sounds authentic, but it never really feels authentic. (In fact, the 30 seconds or so that Shooter Jennings appears onscreen playing his old man Waylon might make you want to watch that biopic instead.)
Phoenix doesn’t get much help from director and co-writer James Mangold, whose standard-issue biopic plot is more about toeing the line than walking it. See Johnny nearly blow his Sun Records audition until he plays his own stuff instead of recycled gospel! See Johnny get turned on to speed by Elvis! See Johnny self-destruct at the Grand Ole Opry! Mangold could just as easily have given us these well-documented talking points in a VH1 Behind the Music special.
Come to think of it, maybe what makes Walk the Line fall short of greatness is the same problem that plagues most biopics about musicians. Maybe it isn’t the actors or the filmmakers; maybe it’s the musicians. It seems that no matter how singular the personality—Ray Charles and Jim Morrison have also been well and famously portrayed—the life story inevitably descends into the rock-star clichés of sex, drug addiction, failed marriages and burnout. Cash the musician was undeniably great, but his music itself will always be the finest testimonial to that greatness. As for Cash the man, well, maybe it’s not this film that’s a tad generic; maybe it’s the subject.
(3/4)