Walk the Line **** (2005, Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin) – Classic Movie Review 712

Following the trail blazed by Ray (2004), director James Mangold’s entertaining, informative and involving 2005 biopic of troubled country music legend Johnny Cash boasts an ace impersonation and a great performance by Oscar-nominated Best Actor Joaquin Phoenix. It is all the more amazing since he does his own singing.

But it was Reese Witherspoon, also performing all her own songs, who won the Oscar as Best Actress for her showstopping performance as Cash’s second wife, June Carter. She also won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical and BAFTA Film Award for the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.

Walk the Line (2005) won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical, one of its three wins. There was only the one Oscar win, but four more nominations: for Best Performance by an Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Achievement in Film Editing (Michael McCusker), Best Achievement in Costume Design (Arianne Phillips), and Best Achievement in Sound Mixing.

Duets between the two stars – who also learned to play guitar and autoharp – on Jackson and I Got You Babe are exhilarating. In any case, the movie is a duet double act between the two stars, and it was unfair that Phoenix didn’t win too. Witherspoon would not have been this good without his brilliant turn to play opposite.

Phoenix did win the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical. After three nominations for Gladiator (2000), Walk the Line (2005) and The Master (2012), by 2019 he is still Oscarless, though that may change after his Joker appearance.

James Mangold’s and Gill Dennis’s screenplay is based on Johnny Cash’s book Man in Black, as well as Cash: The Autobiography. Perhaps spurred by the Oscars and Golden Globes, Walk the Line was an enormous success, grossing $119,519,402 in the US and $186,438,883 worldwide. It cost $28,000,000 to make.

Walk the Line runs 136 minutes or 153 minutes in the extended cut.

The extremely talented James Mangold has also directed Heavy, Cop Land, Girl, Interrupted, Kate and Leopold, Identity, 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Knight and Day, The Wolverine, Logan, and Ford v Ferrari.

Portrait of Reese Witherspoon by Graeme Jukes.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 712 derekwinnert.com