Standing inside the ring of fire

Walk the Line (2005)
Fox 2000 Pictures presents a James Mangold film, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Written by Mangold and Gill Dennis, from an autobiography by Johnny Cash. 136m. PG-13 for some language, thematic material and depiction of drug dependency.

3 stars

As a door-to-door salesman, John R. Cash couldn’t sell worth a lick.

So it’s no surprise that partway through a warbled rendition of the limp spiritual “I Was There When It Happened,” Cash and the Tennessee Two are cut off by legendary record producer Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts).

The Sun Records magnate tells Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) he sings without conviction, prompting Cash to growl each dark lyric of “Folsom Prison Blues” back at Phillips. This was the day the Man in Black was born.

“Walk the Line” is this year’s “Ray,” a cinematic tribute to a much beloved – but decidedly troubled – music icon who has recently passed. As final send-offs go, this rehash of Cash gets points for its moxy and loses them for occasionally charting a meandering course.

The singer - who transcended folk, county and rock styles to make his own mark in music – is both hero and villain of “Walk the Line.” Although the film is book-ended by his January 1968 performance at the maximum security Folsom Prison, its emotional heart lies in post-Depression Arkansas.

A tragic early childhood event would define the dichotomy of Cash’s world: an unquenchable desire to prove himself obscured by an outward indifference. When brother Jack (Lucas Till) encounters the wrong end of a woodshop’s saw, it’s an alcoholic father who damned his boy to a lifetime of feeling inadequate.

“The Devil did this,” said father Ray (Robert Patrick, in a solid performance). “He took the wrong son.”

And as Cash grows up, we can’t help but wonder if Ray had a little prescient clarity amidst that booze-addled fumbling. Johnny’s singularly minded on the music, which his wife, Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), dutifully reminds him isn’t paying the monthly rent.

But even after “Cry, Cry, Cry” is a minor hit, Cash neglects his home duties. Instead, he runs wild on a barnstormer’s tour with Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Payne), Elvis Presley (Tyler Hilton) and June Carter (Reese Witherspoon).

By 1956, Cash has scored big with “I Walk the Line” – and a gaggle of adolescent girls. But Johnny’s unquenched desire remains June, who is coping with her first divorce.

Over the next nine years, Johnny will begin a rapid descent into full-time philandering, boozing and pill-popping. Vivian, who remains dutiful even when confronted with evidence about Johnny and June’s tryst, tells her husband, “You’re a pathetic excuse for a man. She’ll find out, John. She’ll find out.”

Despite the way that Cash tears himself apart with his vices, there’s an undeniable chemistry between Phoenix and Witherspoon which helps the audience believe that maybe, just maybe, these two hard-luck lovers were meant for each other. The situation is naturally conflicting for the film’s audience. We can’t conscionably root for someone so spiritually bankrupt, yet we often do without hesitation.

It’s the music that provides hope that Cash will overcome his inner demons and make a proper suitor for June. Phoenix’s surprising baritone not only injects a modicum of authenticity into the film’s concerts, but it often tricks our ears into hearing what we want to hear: the Man in Black’s unique cadence. Phoenix is careful not to overdo the delivery and make the attempt seem like a cheap imitation. But both he and Witherspoon, who sings beautifully in her own right, shower performances with real sparks, adding white-hot tension to songs like Dylan’s “It Isn’t Me Babe” and one of their signature duets, “Jackson.”

Despite including a bevy of Cash’s most revered tunes, the film has little to say about Cash’s impact on the burgeoning rockabilly scene of the 1950s. Instead, it’s singularly focused on the love affair between Johnny and June.

In adapting Cash’s autobiography for the screen, director James Mangold doesn’t shy away from the singer’s habitual drug use. The amphetamines, an integral part of Johnny’s life, are an almost permanent roadblock to his relationship with June. The film ends on an upswing, with Johnny proposing marriage onstage after maintaining complete, albeit brief, sobriety. It’s a scene made literally for the movies, serving conveniently as a poignant coda. Johnny Cash would continue to record and live for another 35 years, but why let that fact overshadow a good love story?