Reviewed by Aditya Basrur

A FILM which tells the story of someone’s life in two hours or less is always an ambitious undertaking. When the film’s subject is a musician, there is sure to be a temptation to turn the film into a musical, showing music with short segments interspersed. Walk the Line succumbs to this temptation to some extent, but is still entirely worthwhile.


The film tells the story of the early life of Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix), who sang country and is probably the most recognisable voice in American music. The similarities with Ray Charles are many: both grew up in poverty, singing gospel, with many affairs along the way, and had addictions to drugs which they overcame. Some might say Walk the Line is the same story told about a different person. The arc it follows is conventional for musical biopics, leaving you with a broad view of Cash’s early life.

The major point of difference from Ray is the inclusion of June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) in the story. We are told that Johnny Cash listened to June Carter as a youngster. He is mesmerised by her when they first meet on stage, and then thereafter. His drug overdoses seem to be fuelled by his inability to be with her. (She resists him, at first because he has a family, and then because he is drugged out of his senses). But it is June who nurses him through the addiction (dragging her famous family along), plays with him as he resuscitates his career, and then, finally agrees to marry him.

If June Carter is one of the film’s themes, Cash’s relationship with his father (a hard-edged Robert Patrick) is the other. The young Johnny Cash has to hear his father tell him that he should have died instead of his brother. The older Johnny Cash has his new house compared unfavourably to Jack Benny’s by his father. It is almost his father’s disapproval which fuels Cash through his career, his addiction, and in part, his recuperation. “Your father doesn’t even look at me,” Carter tells Cash during a Thanksgiving where they are brought together. And this makes Cash want her more.

Along the way, of course, there’s music. There is a seminal scene where Cash is told to stop singing gospel by manager Sam Phillips, and to sing as though his life depended on it. He does. And we hear renditions of “Burning Ring of Fire”, “Walk the Line”, “It Ain’t Me Babe” and several other classics. Elvis Presley (credited with getting Cash on to drugs in the film, but perhaps not in reality) and Jerry Lee Lewis make appearances and sing too. Cash’s own band is given little truck in the film, perhaps in order to vindicate first wife Vivian’s belief that Cash’s band consists of him and “two mechanics”. One of the most remarkable aspects of the film is that Phoenix and Witherspoon sang the songs themselves. As a result, the film is altogether more compelling. When Phoenix, in Walk the Line’s most harrowing moment, comes on stage high and collapses but tries to perform all the same, you get the feeling he is Cash up there, shudder and face up close to the microphone down pat.

Some aspects of Walk the Line are no doubt fictionalised in order to make the story more compelling. Others are perhaps a little unfair. Cash’s first wife is portrayed as demanding and unsympathetic in the little we see of her. (Perhaps this is to be expected in a film where Cash’s and Carter’s son was the major consulting voice). The ending is a little abrupt, with Cash’s father a member of the family and accepting Carter. But these are minor issues.

Walk the Line is carried by Phoenix and Witherspoon. Phoenix’s intensity is compelling, especially during the period when he’s on drugs and thereafter. Witherspoon shows that she can be a serious actress too, while bringing her trademark bubbly enthusiasm to the role. The film is also made by rollicking old-fashioned music which gets you tapping your feet. The three combined make for a provocative, humorous, but altogether very enjoyable ride through the first 35 years of Johnny Cash’s life. Walk the Line is one to see this Oscar season.