Movie Review: Walk The Line

We hear a low, steady rumble, possibly an impending thunderstorm. Then we see the sign: Folsom Prison. Save for a few guards, there is no activity outside the walls. The deep, rolling sound grows louder. Slowly, we move inside the prison, down hallways and past empty cells. The thumping noise becomes a roar as we enter a main hall.

The inmates of Folsom Prison are stomping their feet and clapping their hands, beckoning Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) to return to the stage. Cash's band is keeping the beat. Together, musicians and audience create an ungodly howl.

Backstage, in the workshop, Cash fingers a saw blade.

Johnny Cash's famous and notorious concert at Folsom Prison is used as the frame for Walk The Line. It was a concert that restored Cash's confidence after years lost to drug addiction, and it reaffirmed his connection with the downtrodden members of the country who were largely overlooked by society as a whole.

After the wonderful Folsom opening set piece, we travel back to Cash's childhood in Arkansas, where he works on the family cotton farm with his unpermissive and dour father (Robert Patrick). Eventually, the Cashes are forced to deal with the untimely death of a family member, and it's this tragedy which drives a deeper wedge between Johnny and his dad. It also haunts Cash for the rest of his life.

Walk The Line mostly chronicles the early years of Johnny Cash, paying particular attention to his long and star-crossed courtship of June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). It's both a love story and a warts-and-all music biopic. It follows Cash through his turbulent first marriage to Vivian Cash (Ginnifer Goodwin, quite good, in a bit of a shrewish role), and on to his early success as a pioneer of country and rock music. It is during these early tours when Johnny first meets Carter - a fellow singer and performer who is already married herself - and it's their blossoming love which gives the film its emotional center. As Cash and Carter struggle to contain their passion, Cash fights against a growing drug addiction which threatens to derail both his career and his desire to be with Carter.

Looking at some of the early Oscar favorites, it seems that portraying a real life person is a surefire way to garner yourself a nomination. I still haven't seen 2004's Ray, but one of the things I've heard most about Jamie Foxx's performance is how uncanny his portrayal of Ray Charles is. In Walk The Line, Phoenix's performance is a different style altogether. What's impressive to me is that he doesn't "channel" Johnny Cash. He doesn't look like him. He gets the raw energy of the voice right, even if he doesn't quite match Cash's barrel-chested bass. But he definitely nails Cash's swagger. His Cash is less of an impersonation and more of a fully fleshed-out character. If viewers walk into a theater unaware of Johnny Cash and his life story, they will still be mesmerized by the Man in Black. Phoenix creates a character while still doing justice to the real man.

Article Author: Brian St. Brian

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