Walk the Line Director and Star Understand Their Man
Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick

Review by Chris Manson
December 1, 2005 Issue

James Mangold’s Walk the Line, adapted by Mangold and Gill Dennis from Johnny Cash’s autobiographies Man in Black and Cash, is not the best film ever made about American music’s Mount Rushmore. That honor still belongs to Mark Romanek’s music video Hurt—a four-minute masterpiece that touched on nearly every aspect of the musician’s life and times. Of course, Romanek had the benefit of the singer himself playing the part of Johnny Cash. Mangold’s film runs a very respectable second.

I never got to meet Johnny Cash, but I came pretty close in 1983 during a celebrity “roast” for Sun Records founder Sam Philips—at the time, Philips was my father’s boss—at the Holiday Inn in Sheffield, Ala. Not close enough as it turns out, since the master-of-ceremonies stopped and shooed me away as I found myself just inches away from Cash’s roast beef dinner. I wasn’t much of a Cash fan then—I had yet to discover the endless pleasures of the At Folsom Prison album—but there was definitely something about the guy’s presence, just being in the same room with him. Like many other faithful Cashheads, I assumed any attempt by a mere actor to capture his essence would be doomed to caricature at best and complete failure at worst, but Joaquin Phoenix miraculously embodies Cash’s defiance, recklessness, truth seeking and vulnerability.

In the movie’s earliest scenes, Robert Patrick is tough and bitter as Ray Cash, the badlands Arkansas farmer who loses one son to a freak accident. The death of a beloved brother haunts Johnny Cash throughout his life and provides the fuel for a longstanding feud between father and surviving son. Patrick, probably still best known for Terminator 2, appears to have found a niche for himself as a character actor—he recently portrayed Vernon Presley in the CBS miniseries Elvis. Musicians Shelby Lynne and Shooter Jennings deliver effective portraits of Cash’s mother and Waylon Jennings respectively. Waylon Malloy Payne is a genuine discovery. This kid steps effortlessly into Jerry Lee Lewis’ shoes and really brings it home with his dramatization of the legendary “We’re all going to hell for singing the devil’s music” conversation.

One of the few constants in Cash’s life—besides booze and pills—is June Carter, daughter of Mother Maybelle Carter and later Cash’s wife for more than three decades. The boy listens to her on the radio late at night. The young man reads about her latest marriage during an overseas Air Force stint. The emerging artist meets her in the flesh backstage at a concert and literally finds himself entangled. During another performance, Cash coerces Carter into singing a duet with him that she recorded with her recently estranged husband Carl Smith. This will not be the last time Cash puts her on the spot in front of thousands of adoring fans.

Those fans will find a lot to love about this movie. In addition to telling the story of how Johnny met June and how June saved Johnny from addiction, the movie works in a plethora of references and side gags for the diehards. Blink and you might miss mother’s hymn book, the secret to the boom-chicka-boom sound, Glen Shirley, the shoeshine boy who’s got the dirtiest job in town, Cash’s letter to Bob Dylan scrawled on an airsick bag and dozens of others.

The music far exceeded my expectations, particularly Reese Witherspoon’s sassy renditions of June Carter’s songs and comedy. The selections from the Cash songbook are interesting, hardly a predictable “greatest hits” assortment. But Witherspoon’s and Phoenix’s vocalizing would hardly constitute anything worth listening to without the actors’ uncannily rendered mannerisms and personalities. I don’t know if Mangold and soundtrack supervisor T. Bone Burnett considered trying it the other way, with the actors just lip-synching to the originals a la Jamie Foxx in his Oscar-winning turn as Ray Charles, but I believe the right decision was made.

Walk the Line begins during one of Cash’s triumphs, the Folsom Prison concert that spawned his classic 1968 recording. I thought the film might end there, too, with the temporarily pill-free Cash thumbing his nose at the warden while singing one of my favorite tunes from the LP. This is also the defining moment for Phoenix and he really nails it. Flawless, I thought, roll credits. But then the movie remembers some unfinished business, and that ending seems perfect, too. Now, I could accuse the filmmakers of trying desperately to tie up all the loose ends, but the final moments of Walk the Line–ending #3—feel as true and deceptively simple as the best of Cash’s songs.

Mangold’s career has been pretty impressive so far. He got off to a great start with the character-driven Heavy and the superstar-driven Copland. Girl, Interrupted won Angelina Jolie an Oscar, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the twisted John Cusack thriller Identity. All of these films—including the Meg Ryan romantic comedy Kate and Leopold, which I didn’t see—were successful to some degree, but none suggested the director could handle this material with the intelligence and feeling required. Mangold relies on a lot of the old rise-and-fall stuff, but not one emotion in the movie rings false. The film refuses to put Cash on a pedestal, allowing us to see a complex man not only during his moments of glory, but also at his pill-popping, child-neglecting worst.

Bottom Line: Jump into this burning ring of fire.

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