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Common Sense Note

Parents should know that the film includes frequent images of drug use and drunkenness, as Johnny Cash was a famously driven, unhappy man, as well as a brilliant artist. The film concerns his relationship with his wife June Carter, which involves both divorcing other spouses and tensions as she helps him fight his addictions. The film also features frequent cursing, drinking, and smoking, as well as fights between father and son. A boy is killed off-screen in a circle-saw accident. There is a brief sex scene and some adulterous behavior.

Families can discuss whether or not they feel this is an accurate portrayal of the events in Cash's life. Are there biases involved in the storytelling? Does the movie further the myth of Johnny Cash or provide new insight into his character? From whose point of view is the story told?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs

Fascinating and well-acted, WALK THE LINE tells the life story of John R. Cash (Joaquin Phoenix), a hard-drinking, drug-abusing, soul-searching, all-black-wearing, June-Carter-loving man. Driven by a desire to please his disparaging father Ray (Robert Patrick), Johnny finds solace in his passions for music and June (Reese Witherspoon).

Predictably showcasing high and low points, this biopic wrestles the man's contradictions and passions into a typical, palatable shape: the movie opens on Cash looking haunted by the trauma of his brother's death and closes on a happy note, and then drops an epigraph that Cash had 35 more years to endure before he and June died within four months of one another.

June and Johnny's legendary mutual devotion helps to make his equally infamous orneriness seem worthwhile. Drawn from Cash's two autobiographies, Cash: The Autobiography and The Man in Black, the film opens as young John is listening to 10-year-old June sing on the radio. At 12, he picks cotton on his father's Arkansas farm in 1944, learns hymnals out of his mother's book, and dotes on his older brother Jack (Lucas Till). The trauma-that-becomes-life-crushing-guilt occurs when little JR leaves Jack to work a faulty circle-saw one Saturday afternoon, then holds his hand in hospital while Jack dies, bloody, pasty white, and eternally "good."

As a young man, Johnny joins the Air Force, and buys his first guitar while stationed in Germany in 1955. (The dead brother story begs comparison to Ray Charles', as do the two films' structural similarities.) While in the Air Force, Johnny sees a newsreel about Folsom Prison, feels a kinship with the inmates, and writes "Folsom Prison Blues," the song with the dicey lyrics ("I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die") that convinces Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts) to sign him.

WALK THE LINE's mythologizing of Johnny Cash is never very surprising (though Phoenix's performance is frequently remarkable). As he's plainly in love with June, he's also married to Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), her role limited to First Wife, resenting his absence and addictions to amphetamines and alcohol. At the same time, June appears increasingly vibrant and seductive, her demands clearly unselfish, her needs of a piece with his own. She supports her man in all circumstances, even when she finds Johnny and their Sun Records tour mates sloppy drunk and throws beer bottles at them ("We surrender!").

June's support is made visual in several scenes, as when she literally pulls Johnny out of a lake following a wrenching Thanksgiving upheaval (he drives a tractor into the lake) and sits in the back of the room during his famous live Folsom Prison recording in 1968. As the camera changes focus from his ravaged face on stage, beloved by his inmate audience, to hers, composed and stalwart, utterly dedicated, her quiet strength is as evident as his connection with the inmates.

Even as Johnny makes it hard to love him, June's dedication is admirable and profound. It makes all the difference, as the film loves their glorious duets (several thrilling moments, as when Witherspoon and Phoenix sing Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe" in romanticized, halo-lit two-shots) and returns repeatedly to her moral and emotional schooling. Throughout the film, as in that extraordinary video for "Hurt," June's gaze makes Johnny seem inspired and exceptional. It's a familiar story, the good woman who stands by her man. And it's tantalizing too, suggesting that another, perhaps less typical story might be found in June's life.

Families who like this movie will also like other music biopics, including Ray, Sweet Dreams, and Coal Miner's Daughter.

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