Charity's Place.com

WALK THE LINE

REVIEWED BY BRETT WILLIS

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: adultery, drug content, brief harsh language

Rated:

for Best Actor, and Best Actress

I’m thankful for the career, particularly the later career, of Johnny Cash. While it’s “politically acceptable” for Country Music artists to profess Christianity, and many do so, few are able to effectively communicate their message to a mixed audience without sounding preachy and judgmental. That was one of the strong points in Johnny’s music and his other ShowBiz work. He could perform in prisons or on the Vegas Strip, he could be believable as the “bad guy” while singing a negative-themed story song or while playing the murderer in an episode of Columbo, and his fans ranged from Fundamentalists to hard-timer convicts, yet people knew that he stood for something in real life.

Walk the Line covers only the early part of Johnny’s career, and it’s marketed primarily as a romance between Johnny and his second wife June Carter. It opens with teaser footage of the Folsom Prison Concert in 1968, then does a master flashback all the way to Johnny’s traumatic childhood, then slowly comes forward to 1968 and ends with Johnny and June getting engaged. The subsequent 35 years, until Johnny’s and June’s deaths in 2003, are covered with just on-screen text. So we get to see the tumult of carousing and drug addiction, plus the fixes to some of those problems, but no detail view of the many years in later life when the Cashes just did their jobs, performed, raised their kids, and behaved themselves properly. Any exciting story, whether fiction or nonfiction, is based on strong conflict. Once the conflict is resolved, the story is over as far as holding the audience’s attention. While I understand that principle, I do wish that Johnny’s deliverance from pill-popping would have included prayer and explicit references to Christian faith, rather than just showing Johnny going cold turkey while June and her parents stand guard over him and shoo away his pusher with a shotgun.

In childhood, Johnny (Ridge Canipe) is overshadowed by his older brother Jack (Lucas Till) who intends to be a preacher. Their mother Carrie (Shelby Lynne) has tried to communicate her faith to them. Johnny knows the hymns, but Jack knows the Scriptures. When Jack is killed in an accident, their father Ray (Robert Patrick) implies it was somehow Johnny’s fault, and that “the wrong son died.” In the early 1950s, after a stint in the Air Force and a failed career as a door-to-door salesman, amateur musician Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) decides to audition for Sam Phillips at Sun Records. His wife Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), a chronic complainer and belittler, is none too happy about Johnny’s ShowBiz aspirations and just wants him to be a “normal” husband.

Phillips tells Johnny his Gospel singing isn’t convincing and he needs to sing something with feeling in it. Johnny responds with his original song, “Folsom Prison Blues.” Johnny and his band are hired, and go on tour with other Sun artists such as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. When Johnny meets his long-time idol June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) in person for the first time, he’s smitten with her and gets on her trail like a bloodhound. Since she’s a Christian single mom already suffering from the guilt of a recent divorce, she at first refuses the advances of this supposedly happily-married man. Well, there are always the groupies. And the Amphetamines, which Johnny is pressured into trying because “Elvis takes them,” and eventually gets busted for. But what he really wants is June: body, mind and soul. His ultimately-successful chase after her is the center point of the rest of the film.

June is a “hero” character for being instrumental in helping Johnny kick his habit, but she sleeps with him while he’s still married. Then, having guilt pangs and fleeing away from Johnny, she goes through a second marriage and divorce. Many fans of the Cashes aren’t aware that they had such a questionable beginning. Well, now they’ll know. This film was NOT an “ambush,” waiting for the stars’ deaths before being green lighted. Johnny and June approved the film project, personally chose Phoenix and Witherspoon to play them, and their son John Carter Cash is the Executive Producer. But not everyone came away happy from the project. According to one of their real-life children, this portrayal of Vivian as a “shrew” is inaccurate; there were a lot of happy family times, and Vivian was supportive of Johnny’s music career until the drugs started taking over.

Language is moderate, but there’s one f-word (yelled by a higher-than-a-kite Johnny at one of his band members during a performance) and assorted other colorful profanity. The violence is restrained, consisting mostly of verbal abuse and destruction of inanimate objects. There are several instances of implied illicit sex, but there’s NO on-screen nudity or inappropriate touching. Johnny’s drug use gets a lot of screen time, and he’s shown suffering from the addiction, but this too could have been made much more graphic than it was. With the given of how the story was going to be told, I give the film team high marks for restraint.

The acting by the leads and most of the supporting cast is excellent. The period piece detailing is very good. Phoenix and Witherspoon do their own singing. Even though Johnny’s voice was unique and is impossible to imitate, there are times when Phoenix recreates the “feel” of Johnny performing. As I said, this is an engaging love story (if you can overlook its context of deceit and disrespect), but I wish the producers had found a way to give some attention to Johnny’s later life, to the Christian faith that helped keep him drug-free, and to the social consciousness of many of his post-1968 songs. Ironically, Johnny penned the title song as a pledge to Vivian. I wonder how many tickets the film would sell if it had been titled “I DIDN’T Walk the Line”? Seriously, I’d have titled it after the song “Ring of Fire” which was written by June, apparently in reference to her extramarital relationship with Johnny. That title would more accurately warn audiences of the film’s content. This is a very worthwhile biopic, but I hesitate to recommend it to teens lest some of them think that the negative behavior looks attractive.

Additional comments by Charity Bishop

Two things drew me to this production. The first was my curiosity in the life of Johnny Cash, whose occasional songs would play on the oldies station in my area. The second was the attachment of Reese Witherspoon to the project. I walked out of the film very touched, slightly heartbroken, and pleasantly surprised. I am disappointed that the film used subtlety to reference Johnny's conversion to Christianity after years of adultery, pill-popping, and alcohol, but I felt the audience was cheated out of the greater achievements of his life. That much being said, it was an extremely well done film that leaves the audience with a lot to chew on after the ending credits.

On the whole, I thought the movie was great. It was too long at times, but the value dwelled in its poignancy and honest determination to show one man's struggle against the fame that threatened to destroy him. There are many good lessons involved, but the early lives of Johnny and June were not perfect. I don't feel the film glamorizes their bad behavior (drunkenness and drug addiction on his part, June's momentary weakness in giving in to him on hers) but instead uses it to reveal the pain and suffering that can come from bad choices. It was a good movie. It could have been a little stronger on the faith aspect, but I think it's quite powerful the way it is.