I am sorry sweet friends, but this version of Johnny Cash’s life just didn’t do it for me. I felt it was hurriedly “put together” and like I have often told y’all before, there is no one who can play Cash but Cash, just like there is no one who can play John Wayne but Wayne himself. They both are bigger than anyone who could portray them. Cash deserves better.
Kudos to Joaquin Phoenix for trying, however.
This reminds me of the first attempt at Lord of the Rings . Well-intentioned but falling way short of the mark.
If you can change my mind, I ask you to try, and I will give it another look.
Oh, blast. I thought you meant we should make a try at making a new Johnny Cash-movie in which case this would have been one of the oddest threads in a long time.
Oh well. Walk the line was appealing to me, because it had a theme - the relationship between June and Johnny. I wouldn’t mind any new films covering other aspects of his life. Frankly, I’d wager his life was so interesting you could just keep them coming.
I loved the movie. There, I said it. I found Phoenix fine enough - forgive me on this one, too, but I found his harelip scare distracting - but overall, I really enjoyed his performance. Reese Witherspoon was amazing - or, put it another way, I found June Carter amazing and the combination of the person, the script, Reese’ perfomance, etc. really brought her to life for me. When the simple woman at the store looks down at June for getting a divorce and June apologizes to the woman for letting her down, I was smitten.
I wish there had been more about the music itself, but I really enjoyed the movie and the fact that they showed Johnny to be at the heart of rockabilly before he moved more to country…
I think Joaquin Phoenix did a very good acting/singing job and Reese Witherspoon was exceptional. In spite of that, I thought the movie overall was good, but not great. For some reason, it just didn’t capture me the way I expected it to. The movie also took some liberties that I didn’t think were necessary (most particularly the way it portrayed Ray Cash).
While the performances were fine, I found it to be little more than a typical telefilm bio. Just connect the highlights of their lives up to 1968, portray a couple iconic incidents, and make sure you name the soon-to-be famous extras in dialogue so people can say, “Oh, wow, there’s Waylon Jennings.”
I thought the movie was okay but I loved Reese Witherspoon. I wasn’t as wowed by Phoenix as the critics evidently were.
The deleted scenes feature a funny segment in which Cash breaks his demo record and panics because he thinks it’s the only copy in existence (there are thousands but that was the advance press). The disk jockey in that scene is played by Johnny & June Carter’s son John Carter (who is something of a horribly spoiled prick according to those who worked for his parents).
My main nitpick was that of all the legion of Elvis impersonators out there they managed to choose one person who looks and sounds nothing like Elvis to play the role. Also, I would have liked more explanation on why Johnny was living in a dingy apartment with Waylon Jennings after leaving his wife: he clearly had money (the bank scene immediately followed) and he had beaucoups of friends and relatives.
I really enjoyed it. I had the same fears that no one would be able to play Johnny, but I thought Phoenix did as well as anyone could. Reese Witherspoon was fantastic, as she tends to be when she picks good roles (which isn’t often enough).
The movie is a very unflattering portrait of Johnny Cash, as any accurate movie about that period of his life would have to be.
Yeah, but he wasn’t in any shape to face most of his friends or family at that point, nor did he have the presence of mind to get things together on his own. It was probably easier and more comfortable to crash with someone who had his own demons.
(Waylon wasn’t exactly unknown at that point, but he wasn’t a big star. What he did have was cleaned out in a divorce settlement right around the time that scene would have been. Even after his big hits in the 70s, a massive cocaine problem left Waylon pretty much broke for most of his career, probably until the late 80s.)
The story was about how Johnny Cash overcame his demons and finally married the woman he loved. That’s why the story ended when it did. His life turned around at that point, so it was a natural stopping place for the story.
Incidentally, around 1995 we were in Vegas, in the airport waiting to come home. While standing there, I saw an old man dressed in black walking along with a suitcase. It was Johnny Cash. He looked awfully lonely. He had no entourage, no limo, no one with him. Just Johnny, schlepping himself to another gig somewhere.
I liked it well enough, though I agree with the comparisons with “Ray”. I didn’t even finish Ray, but I suspect the reason I liked “Walk the Line” better was because I have a bit more of an interest in Cash but very little in Charles.