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From the start, one can see that it will fall into the trap of all other musician tales (sure enough, that brother is dead thirty minutes in), but the leads steer away from clichÄs and completely flesh out their characters.
Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t just impersonate Johnny Cash, he envelopes him. Phoenix realizes that there is more to Cash than just that stagger and his omnipresent black clothing (something Foxx never realized as he was mimicking Ray Charles’s infamous smile and jaunty piano-fingering); he gets behind this deeply troubled man.

Phoenix, who hasn’t really proven himself as an actor outside of Gladiator, makes his Cash persona gritty enough on the surface so that his serenades of Folsom Prison aren’t seen as mere observations, but as true emphasizing. However, his beautiful romantic plays for June Carter, his one true love, show that he could truly fall into a “Ring of Fire.”

Of course, Phoenix would look foolish if he was devoting all of this attention to someone undeserving, but Reese Witherspoon’s Carter is truly worth all of the accolades he showers on her.

Unlike in Ray, where the women are relegated to secondary characters to Ray’s drugs and music, here Reese’s Carter is a central figure, and this gives Phoenix’s Cash a balance and provides for some much needed energy.

Witherspoon is vivacious, sweet, and just a little bit melancholy. Watching her character’s showbiz mask deteriorate as she falls in love with Cash is the most successful element of the film: unlike other films where a love story seems to be thrown in to appeal to a wider demographic, this passionate interlude in fact seems to fit into the story, carrying it from scene to scene, therefore not risking the story becoming stale or repetitive as they pull out the Billboard chart busters.

Indeed, Walk the Line pulls out all the great hits from the two artists: “Ring of Fire,” “Walk the Line,” and
“Cocaine Blues” are all performed with sheer delight by Joaquin Phoenix.

Unlike Ray, where Jamie Foxx lip-synchs to the incomparable Ray Charles (really, the best part of Ray was the soundtrack-invest in it and ignore the video in your Blockbuster), here Phoenix and Witherspoon perform, and they sure can croon that honky tonk. Reese in particular is spectacular (my personal favorite performance being “Juke Box Blues”), encompassing June Carter’s bouncy twang with gusto.

Though you’ll know the story by heart, go out and take in Walk the Line. The music soars, the story sings, and Witherspoon and Phoenix create a wild desire into which you’ll fall “down, down, down.”