CASH

November 22, 2005

Walk the Line

Biopics tend to be pretty hit or miss for me, because great lives tend to lack the strong narrative structure required to make a great film. Films that focus around historical events tend to be tighter, while bios tend to sprawl all over and bore me. James Mangold, harhar, walks that line with Walk the Line, pulling the big story of Johnny Cash and the birth of rock ‘n’ roll in around the personal story of Johnny Cash and June Carter, a fabled love that could be denied… or so the story goes.

I haven’t liked Reese Witherspoon since Election, and I’m not sure I’ve ever really liked Joaquin Phoenix in anything, but they both do the heavy lifting here, including the singing(!). The performances, both acting and musical carry the film, as the actual story tends to get a little repetitive. The story of sex, drugs and rock’n'roll gets a chaste twist here, as Cash pursues Carter for FUCKING FOREVER. They never do quite explain why Carter likes Johnny Cash at all, as he’s a bit of a druggie stalker jackass most of the time.

I forgave most of this because of the musical storytelling, which works wonders. Pretty much every stage performance tells a specific story, most of the time better than the previous 10 minutes of exposition. When Carter and Cash perform Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” while Cash’s wife and children look on? Love, God and Murder, right there.

Posted in Moving Pictures