Walk the Line

Charged by the magnetic performances of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Johnny Cash and June Carter, this film’s energy is well channeled by director James Mangold. Like Taylor Hackford of last year’s Ray, he is an underappreciated craftsman, and could have pushed his way on to my “10 Under 50” list of best young directors if I’d already seen this film, coming after Heavy, Cop Land, and Girl, Interrupted. (He is the son of painter Robert Mangold and grew up over in the Hudson valley.) But -- all props to the man behind the camera -- this film belongs to its stars, both the original performers and the actors embodying them, and ranks with Coal Miner’s Daughter at the head of a talented class of country music biopics. There are the traditional tropes of the genre: the hardscrabble childhood, the ravages of life on the road, the sex and drugs, the struggle to find one’s voice and then to sell it, on stage and in the recording studio, the importance of finding a nice house in the country at the end of the road. And there’s also an engaging love story. So it’s all very familiar, but very particular as well. True fans may complain that the film only captures a slice of Johnny Cash’s talent and stature, but for such as myself it was an admirable opening up of some unexplored peaks of the musical landscape. And I would gladly have spent more time in the engaging, exuberant company of Johnny/Joaquin and June/Reese. (2005, AMC Theater in PA, n.) *8* (MC-72, RT-82.)