This movie tells the life of Johnny Cash through a series of clips that give us a glimpse of what are presumably the important moments that he encounters.
When the movie opens, Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) is just about to go onstage at Folsom Prison - we'll find out more about just why he is doing so later.
But before he does, he starts to day dream while looking at a table saw, and that takes him back to 1944, where he recalls his brother, Jack.
It seems that both he and Jack had dreams. Where Johnny (then called JR) wanted to sing, Jack wanted to be a preacher, and was pretty good at it. Jack was pretty good at everything, actually, and on this day Johnny and Jack were going fishing, Jack had to stop and do some work cutting wood, and told his little brother to go on down to the river.
On his way home, Johnny was stopped by his father, covered in blood, and told to get home - only to get there just as Jack died, apparently from a large wound to his chest, seemingly from falling on the saw.
And this shows us the beginnings of Johnny's relationship with his father. Even though Ray Cash (Robert Patrick) doesn't show up a lot in the movie, his presence is felt throughout, as all that Johnny does is try to be good enough for him (he never is).
From that day on, you can sense that he will try and get out as quickly as he can, and just a few short years later, Johnny heads to Germany to get away. It is there that he gets a guitar and starts writing some songs.
But it isn't until after he returns home and gets married that he forms what he calls a band, even though neither the band nor his wife (Ginnifer Goodwin of Big Love) take the band very seriously. One day as he strolls downtown, he experiences a bit of an epiphany when he walks past the recording studio of Sam Phillips, and decides that he needs to make a record. Unfortunately, without the $4 to pay for it, he has to audition to be signed to the label.
Phillips doesn't like the gospel sound, and gives Johnny one last chance - a chance to sing the song he would sing if he only had one song to sing for his maker, and that's when he sings one of his own songs, a song he wrote while in Germany, and that's all the break he needs. That very night they press a record and a legend is born. Unfortunately his wife doesn't think much of it already, and the problems seem to be on their way.
The next months (and years, perhaps - the time isn't specific) are filled with touring, and are interesting because of those involved - not just Johnny Cash, but Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and many others actually share the stage each night - including one June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), who Johnny and his brother Jack used to listen to each night on their radio before going to bed. Needless to say, this doesn't bode well for Johnny's marriage, and it gets even worse when they make such beautiful music together (actual music, I mean).
But unlike Johnny, June does have morals, and has just gone through a messy divorce, so she separates herself from him and tries to keep things from fouling up the tour. Johnny, however, won't have any of it, and nearly runs things into the ground. It's quite surprising that he doesn't kill himself in the process, with the amount of drinking and drugs he did, and we only get to see a small sample.
When Johnny's wife finally leaves him, and he has just about destroyed himself, he finally picks himself up from the bottom (after another cameo, from Waylon Jennings - it's like he was surrounded by musical masters), buys a huge house to impress his father (that doesn't work) and lands June. While that does get him back on his feet, he hasn't recorded in a while, and he decides it's time to reconnect with his fans - many of whom are in prison, so he decides to record a live album from Folsom. That's what gets us back to the beginning, and what really gets things going.
June didn't actually agree to marry Johnny at that point, that came a little later - but they did marry, and toured together for about 35 years, then died within about 4 months of one another. Pretty amazing.
Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar for her portrayal of June Carter, and she did a respectable job, but frankly I think she was a better supporting actress here - she just wasn't around enough to be a leading actress here. The movie was Joaquin's, and he did a great job.
That said, it's probably best if you aren't a die-hard Johnny Cash fan. I can't say, not being one, but I really enjoyed the movie. Had I been one, I may have found some problems or inaccuracies with it that may have made it less enjoyable. As it was, I thought it was great, and with the exception of a stretch where he was just about to run himself into the ground with the drugs, it moved along nicely - no easy trick for a nearly 2.5 hour film (see Ray).
Rated PG-13 for some language, thematic material and depiction of drug dependency.
Comments