Director: James Mangold
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick
Have I Seen It Before: Oh, yeah. I went into a weird spot there for about six months where I was mildly, but insistently obsessed with the Man in Black, and it all had to do with this movie. I’d go in more detail, but I worry I might lose whatever connection I have with you, dear reader, if the phrase “Johnny Cash of the Oklahoma Democratic Party” (brief though it may have been) comes into the conversation.
Did I Like It: I’m sort of glad that the film fell of regular rotation for me, if I’m being honest. The thing that put this into the class of quite-good biopics is that the main and supporting cast are not bad at what they’re trying to imitate. So many other biopics struggle to recreate the art of their subjects. When comedians are at the center, things can get very grim indeed, as even a joke told correctly isn’t all that funny the second time around. Musicians tend to fare quite a bit better, and this may be one of the better examples in that pantheon. Phoenix and Witherspoon are not pure vocal copies of Johnny Cash an June Carter Cash, but they are adept enough musicians that I spent the next six months after first seeing the film listening to the soundtrack (the liner photos of which made it seem like an honest-to-God , and I may be putting it into my regular Apple Music rotation once again.
The quality of the musical performances paper over a lot in the film, which might be weighed down a bit by the typical tropes and structure of a biopic, and one of a musician, no less. Tragedy, being downtrodden, sudden success, equally sudden self-destructiveness, followed by redemption that might strike anyone who has actually lived a human life. It’s all there. If it weren’t for Witherspoon and Phoenix’s palpably chemistry, there might not have been any thing here, other than a concept album.