Walk the Line (2005)
Just saw it again for the first time since it came out. It's basically structured around Johnny Cash's blue balls for June Carter--he falls in love with her when they're just starting out in the mid50s, but one or both of them is/are usually married to someone else, and then finally when they're both single he's too fucked up for her to marry him and she still keeps saying no. Finally he proposes to her in 1968 for the millionth time, this time during a concert and she says yes, for no clear reason..
The performances are better than the screenplay. Joaquin Phoenix was never hotter than he was in this movie. He is so beautiful and deeply vulnerable that it seems insane she won't marry him when they're both single. He also has a fine singing voice (though it's not as raspy or as imbued with character as the real Johnny Cash's). Reese Witherspoon's Oscar win as June Carter was much derided here on DL because it's not a typical showy Best Actress performance, and because it was a weak year for actress roles; still, it's surprising how good she is in it--she's got a lovely voice, and for once she's not playing a rich bitch (as she has almost constantly ever since), but rather a nice person from a rural background who has yet been famous her entire life.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | January 26, 2021 8:46 AM
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It's no Coal Miner's Daughter
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | January 25, 2021 6:41 PM
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Joaquin Phoenix really lost his beauty in the fifteen years since this was made. I would no longer call him a handsome man. It's not just the years, but something else has happened--I'm not sure it its substance abuse or the vegan diet.
He has a very weird way of singing--he twists his head into his shoulder like Dr. Stephen Hawking. Did the real Johnny Cash sing like this? Both he and Witherspoon actually have objectively prettier voices than the people they're playing, but not as much musicality or authenticity.
I feel sorry for Ginnifer Goodwin, who has to play the unrewarding of Vivian, Cash's first wife, whom the screenplay portrays to be a constantly resentful bitch. Apparently her children (including Roseanne Cash) were furious with this depiction of her this way, although the story would not work if she were made to be more sympathetic (you'd think Johnny was a dick for leaving her and the children and mooning over June).
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | January 25, 2021 6:41 PM
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The movie has scene after scene of Johnny Cash waking up bleary eyed after a bender and calling after June Carter, but Phoenix for some reason always pronounces her name as "Nyoon."
"Nyoon? Nyoon?"
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | January 25, 2021 6:43 PM
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Baybee baybee baybee baybee!!!
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | January 25, 2021 6:44 PM
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Joaq and Reese had a fun little reunion 14 years later in Inherent Vice. Are they friends? They weirdly work well together.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | January 25, 2021 6:46 PM
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I'm in it. Still get residual checks. :)
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | January 25, 2021 6:55 PM
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I sat through it for Joaquin, despite the repellent presence of Reese Witherchin. Bleah.
He was beautiful, she was Reese Witherchin.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | January 25, 2021 7:00 PM
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Phillip Seymour Hoffman was pretty certain to win BA, but I just loved Joaquin and I thought his audition scene at the recording studio was pretty intense, Everyone kept whining about how he was so miscast before the movie came out.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | January 25, 2021 7:19 PM
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I thought Reese's voice was excellent. I can't believe this movie came out almost 16 years ago.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | January 25, 2021 7:52 PM
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Fun fact: we all had to lie about our heights when auditioning, not because Joaquin was short but because Cash was so TALL. They didn't want anyone dwarfing him. I said I was 5'9 instead of the real 6 feet.
Joaquin was friendly enough but mostly just laughed like Beavis and Butthead -- and then checked into Rehab two days later.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | January 26, 2021 3:20 AM
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Was it true that he was mooning around chasing Reese or was that just a rumor?
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | January 26, 2021 7:06 AM
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I'll watch this any time it's on TV.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | January 26, 2021 7:07 AM
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R1 You beat me to that comment.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | January 26, 2021 8:02 AM
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I really love Reese in this movie.
You can't walk no line!
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | January 26, 2021 8:22 AM
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Yes, Gennifer Goodwin did have a thankless role; I remember seeing an interview with Rosanne Cash where she talked about how the looking forward to/dreading his return from the road because he was such a mess & you never knew what crazy thing he'd do, so her life was no picnic either. Like Coal Miner's Daughter, I thought this movie did a good job of capturing the monotony of touring & the toll it took on people & their families.
I also thought it was interesting that June is portrayed as an upright citizen single mom, while her daughter Carlene had addiction issues & her younger daughter with the race car driver was homeless & died over an overdose not long after Johnny died.
I can't watch this movie anymore without thinking of "Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story"
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | January 26, 2021 8:46 AM
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