This should by rights have been an awesome movie, with awesome music and an intriguing story, and it didn’t quite fail at achieving it, but it didn’t quite make it, either. Phoenix and Witherspoon were doing an amazing job, especially with the music, but several aspects of the script left me wanting more. We don’t really understand why any of the people do what they do, especially so for the negative influences, his father and his first wife. We get hardly a glimpse of why they act the way they do, and I didn’t really connect to Cash’s reactions to them, either. And the predictable story arc of success – gutter – redemption and it’s edifying connotations may have been unavoidable in a Cash biopic, but still disappointed me in its simplicity. The music made up for much of that, though, and the cinematography and design helped a lot, too.
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