Walk the Line

Another conventional, but successful Hollywood biopic, this time about the iconic Johnny Cash. It's inevitable comparisson will be to last years overhyped, Ray, but I think this is the better film. Joaquin Phoenix is extraordinary as Cash -- a man who in the beginning is just trying to find his own voice and live down the death of his "better" brother and his relationship with his disappointed father, and by the end becomes a true music icon having marched through hell to reach paradise. Equally as extaordinary, however, is Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, the love of his life. I have often found Witherspoon to at time be impossibly cute, but here she provides strength, sensitivity, and a moral grounding to Johnny's life. Most of the film is dedicated to Cash's pursual of her and her numerous rejections, yet always remaining his most faithful friend. James Mangold's direction is conventional, yet steady. It seems at times he chooses to focus on unusual moments in Cash's life which manages to keep it interesting. It's a good film on it's own, but it's worth it just for the performances and the music.