Walk The Line

Another one of those films, like Lost In Translation last year, that as soon as you see the trailer you know you are going to love it forever! Johnny Cash as a musician had been notably absent from my collection, never having flirted too much with country music, but as a person his legend preceded him and the very idea of the man in black held huge appeal for me. To cast Joaquin Phoenix was a stroke of genius, to cast Reese Witherspoon beside him was also very clever - I mean, just look at the above poster! Pure movie class; what chemistry - there is so much going on behind those eyes... There was never any doubt for me from the first scene that this was going to be a big winner. The obvious recent comparison has got to be last years Ray - a musical biopic of a troubled life. But whereas that film left me a little disappointed (see archives) due to the extended use of formulaic plotlines and overlong sequences, Walk The Line hit all the right notes (sorry). It fairly flew along at a healthy pace, never indulging the temptation to linger on unimportant events, but rather concentrating on the loneliness, frustration and angst of a passionate man and his two true loves: music and June. Phoenix totally nails the laconic Cash so well you can almost feel the weight on his shoulders - and the music scenes are scintillatingly good too; all the better for the fact that he sang it all himself, unlike Foxx who mostly mimed to the real voice of Mr Charles. Both leads deserved every bit of praise for their performances along the long and winding road of the awards season - Witherspoon especially stood out in a fairly weak year for female performances and was a shoe in come Oscar night. Phoenix was unlucky, however, to come up against some of the strongest competition of recent years and was always an outsider for the big prize (his year will come - just look at his body of work already!). What I love most about this movie is its lack of pretension. It doesn't try to be anything other than what it is: a love story based on real people in the music business in the 50s and 60s. And as such it achieves an economy that will bring you back to watch it again and again. The direction is nothing that special, it has to be said, but at least it's smart enough to know what to leave out and what to include, and that goes a long way. James Mangold (Cop Land, Girl Interrupted) achieves more in his capacity as a writer, creating lean scenes with sparkling dialogue and a beautiful sense of time, place and relationship. The other thing it has given me is an introduction to discover the music of the real man, with the live album at Folsom prison now ranked very highly in my pecking order. Perhaps not one to be admired as a great work of art, but absolutely one for the top 100 list. 9/10 Kx