Kim Gentes

Phoenix & Witherspoon Walk the Line

"Walk the Line" is an Oscar level story with excellent acting and direction, transporting the audience into the world of music legend Johnny Cash. It would be hard to beat the amazing true-life plot line that surrounds the icon, Cash. This is easily the best actual story on film for 2005. The directing is likewise worthy and makes important delineation on not rewriting the real history of the man with some unrealistic vision of Cash. In fact, the director here walks the tightest line of all the contributors. Director James Mangold (who also directed the amazing "Identity") aptly nuances Cashes failures with his amazing strengths. While he never once lets us forget that Cash was a talent that underestimated even himself, he also communicates clearly that Johnny knowingly walked the line into some of his darkest self inflicted pain. What I like about Mangold's handling of the picture is that he paints Cash with a real brush of real life, not some Cinderella who handled success perfectly, not some premadonna who reached out to the little people.

But the best part of this movie is the walk-the-line performance of Reese Witherspoon as June Carter. She eclipses Joaquin Phoenix in this film, through her dead-on portrayal of Cash's love. Scenes that needed emotional insecurity from Witherspoon danced perfectly along the line of thin trepidation. Scenes that needed strong clarity of purpose, show a real June Carter who's internal self assessments kept her need for external comforting (from the adoring public) at a negligible level. She played the role so well, you stopped thinking of this as a movie about someone.. you thought it was the actual people.

The visuals in the film were much less impressive than I expected them to be. With the careers and venues that the performer appeared at, it seemed like the intensity of the movie wasn't what it should be, given the impact of the performer on the culture of his day. It's hard to put your finger on something that wasn't there, but to me, the cinematography just felt like it didn't wake us up any point in the film. This ought not be the case, as we saw from the striking camera work and scenery from desolate locations such as the mining ranges of Minnesota in the recent film, "North Country".

That said, "Walk the Line" gets a strong rating from me (A-), but falls short of being in the most elite films category. This movie is certainly worth your money at the box office, but be aware that it will also take a bit of time. The 2 hours 15 minutes this film consumes seems long enough if you are watching the clock, but if you are as engrossed as the other 95% of the viewers in the theatre, you will wish you had another 30 or 40 minutes with this excellent story telling cast. Definitely go see this film on the big screen.