Running time: 123 minutes
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick, Ginnifer Goodwin
Rating 7 out of 10
When Johnny Cash died in 2003 the music world mourned the passing of a legend. But life hadn't always been a bed of roses for the veteran superstar: there were times when he fell out of the public's gaze, times when his addictions threatened his life and times when his personal life lay in tatters. James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted, Cop Land) has directed a new film which looks at the early part of Cash's career, and replete with a trio of Golden Globe Awards, the film looks sure to capture the cinema-going public in Britain as well as it has done in the United States, where it has taken an impressive $100m at the box office.
The film traces Cash's life from his days as a child on a cotton farm in Arkansas to his infamous gig at Folsom prison in 1968, where he recorded some of his best-known versions of classic songs. At Sun records in Memphis he began as an unknown in the brave new world of rock and roll, but his distinctive drawl and penchant for traditional sound soon saw him carving a niche as a crossover artist who took country music to the masses. On the bill with the likes of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Cash became an instant hit: his brooding good looks giving him an aura of mystery, and his trademark black attire singling him out as an alternative kind of hero.
But if his professional life was relatively plain sailing, his paid the price domestically. Trapped in a marriage which he increasingly began to question, Cash became an early victim of the lures of the road: soon enough painkillers and Class A drugs became his mistress of choice. Only through the support and love of his second wife, June Carter, did he manage to claw his way out of a potential life-or-death situation.
In Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, Mangold has found two actors born to play their roles. Both have been carving out impressive careers with different types of films, and that's perhaps why their chemistry works so well together: if Cash and his wife were polar opposites for a long time at the beginning of their relationship, the two actors certainly carry it off convincingly. Phoenix's Cash is nonchalant and often aloof, but blessed with musical genius while as Carter Witherspoon radiates on the outside as a folksy all-American gal, while underneath she is as tough as nails.
Add to this some fine music - and there's plenty of it, sung in his own voice by Phoenix - and all the ingredients are there for a classic biopic. That it never quite reaches the highest level is perhaps due to the script which lingers too long on a short period, allowing for several repetitive argument scenes between the two leads, and totally ignoring the last 35 years of Cash's life. What's there is great - it's just a shame that we couldn't have found out even more about the Man in Black.
Paul Hurley
The film traces Cash's life from his days as a child on a cotton farm in Arkansas to his infamous gig at Folsom prison in 1968, where he recorded some of his best-known versions of classic songs. At Sun records in Memphis he began as an unknown in the brave new world of rock and roll, but his distinctive drawl and penchant for traditional sound soon saw him carving a niche as a crossover artist who took country music to the masses. On the bill with the likes of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Cash became an instant hit: his brooding good looks giving him an aura of mystery, and his trademark black attire singling him out as an alternative kind of hero.
But if his professional life was relatively plain sailing, his paid the price domestically. Trapped in a marriage which he increasingly began to question, Cash became an early victim of the lures of the road: soon enough painkillers and Class A drugs became his mistress of choice. Only through the support and love of his second wife, June Carter, did he manage to claw his way out of a potential life-or-death situation.
In Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, Mangold has found two actors born to play their roles. Both have been carving out impressive careers with different types of films, and that's perhaps why their chemistry works so well together: if Cash and his wife were polar opposites for a long time at the beginning of their relationship, the two actors certainly carry it off convincingly. Phoenix's Cash is nonchalant and often aloof, but blessed with musical genius while as Carter Witherspoon radiates on the outside as a folksy all-American gal, while underneath she is as tough as nails.
Add to this some fine music - and there's plenty of it, sung in his own voice by Phoenix - and all the ingredients are there for a classic biopic. That it never quite reaches the highest level is perhaps due to the script which lingers too long on a short period, allowing for several repetitive argument scenes between the two leads, and totally ignoring the last 35 years of Cash's life. What's there is great - it's just a shame that we couldn't have found out even more about the Man in Black.
Paul Hurley
