Running Time: 152 minutes
Rating: 7/10
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Regina King, Kerry Washington, Aunjanue Ellis, Larenz Tate Buy DVD:Click here
The resemblance to the late music icon is uncanny.
At the piano, Jamie Foxx's lips turn up into a toothy half-moon
smile, the shoulders sway from side to side as if the keys of the
piano contained electrical currents, and the torso thrusts forth with
an almost sexual energy. Even when he is not tinkling the
ivories, the physicality is unmistakably that of Ray Charles--the head
cocked slightly to the side, the wry smile, the alert receptivity of
the body. Of course, Foxx also believably captures Charles'
blindness, although the clenched eyes are most often hidden under
Charles' trademark sunglasses.
Jamie Foxx's (Collateral)
bravura
performance as the musical genius who pioneered new sounds in his
ascent to stardom is what turns a rather standard biopic into something
more--a study of creative brilliance in all its paradoxical
self-destructiveness. A million variations have been played out
of this basic theme, but Foxx plumbs the depths of Charles' troubled
psyche to such startlingly fine effect that the composition seems
somewhat fresh.
The film, told in near-yearly chapters, moves both
backwards and forwards in time. The narrative of Ray's rise is
intercut with flashbacks of his boyhood in northern Florida, the son of
a single sharecropper-mother; these flashbacks serve to illumine the
man that this tiny piano prodigy became. Early in the film, the
audience learns that Ray was partially responsible for the death of his
little brother. The boy fell into a basin, and young Ray had been
stunned, unable to call for help. This tragedy has severe repercussions
for Ray. Not only does the guilt of having been unable to save
his brother from drowning (and thereby hurting his mother as well) plague him for the
rest of his life, but it also causes his blindness. Constantly
crying and rubbing his eyes, little Ray develops glaucoma and is soon
unable to see at all.
Yet having learned to sharpen his other senses to
the extent that he can hear the whirring of a hummingbird's wings at a
distance, Ray boards a bus to Seattle, determined to pursue a career in
music (a kindly old man in Florida had taught him to play). Soon, he is
playing small clubs and is signed to a minor label. An agent
suggests, too, that he change his name from Robinson to Charles.
Learning that he had been gypped, Ray signs with Atlantic Records and
moves to bigger club gigs. From then on, Ray's climb to the top
is rapid and his clout as a recording star almost unprecedented. At one
point, when he switches to ABC records, he has more recording
perks than Sinatra. At first, Ray's music is in the easy
listening Nat King Cole vein, but he soon fuses gospel and R&B to
pioneer soul music. This controversial new music becomes accepted
into the mainstream and both black kids and white
Annette-and-Frankie wannabes groove to this sexy, vital new
sound. While initially Ray is not terribly interested in civil
rights, he does get involved in the burgeoning movement when he refuses
to play for a segregated audience in Georgia. For a time, he is
banned from playing the state. Yet Ray makes up for this by
playing Las Vegas, Paris, Tokyo. The film makes it clear that Ray
Charles was one of the first African-American musical superstars.
As is to be expected in a musical biopic, things are
not so smooth in its protagonist's personal life. It is somewhat
safe to assume that where there are musical instruments, drugs won't be
too far away. While Ray's habit is at first limited to dope, Ray
makes the dangerous leap into heroin. His first wife, Della Bea
(Kerry Washington, The Human Stain), incessantly pleads with
him to give up his habit--especially after she has given birth to his
son. Yet Ray stubbornly insists that they have no impact on his career and is soon in the arms
of more understanding mistresses--his mercurial soloist Mary Ann Fisher
(Aunjanue Ellis, Lovely & Amazing), and then Margie Hendricks (Regina King, Jerry Maguire),
one of his back-up Raylettes. Before long, Margie is discontent with
being Ray's wife-on-the-road, and wants him to leave Bea. Even
when Margie becomes pregnant with Ray's second child, he refuses to
break up his family. Ray's drug use, which has gotten him into
legal trouble, has tragic effects on a loved one and galvanizes him
into seeking help.
As aforementioned, Foxx is dynamite. In
addition to nailing the physical and psychological demands of the role,
Foxx (who trained as a concert pianist) did his own playing. His
lipsyncing to Charles' recordings is also quite impressive, and to an
untrained eye (and ear), it would seem that Foxx was actually
singing. Ray Charles was a complex man, and Foxx does not shy
away from his contradictions. A man who loved gospel and read the
Bible in braille, Ray was a junkie and a womanizer. A
well-intentioned and loving man, Ray could also be self-absorbed and
cruel, often skipping his own son's Little League games without much
compunction.
As the most important women in Ray's life, Kerry
Washington and Regina King are both superb. Washington, gorgeous
and poised, portrays Bea as a woman with steel underlying the
silk. She is constantly hurt and disappointed by her husband, but
has the pre-feminist strength to stay and love him in spite of his many
flaws. By contrast, King's Margie is all flashing eyes and flying
skirts. Lustful and impulsive, Margie loves Ray just as much as
Bea, and is not willing to surrender him to his wife without a good
fight.
Ray, while too methodical a film to arrive at
the truly transcendent heights of a great biopic, is nonetheless quite
a good one. Taylor Hackford's (The Devil's Advocate) direction is
slick and assured, balancing its obvious sympathy for its subject with
admirable objectivity. Some scenes are very effective. In
one skillfully-edited sequence, the camera jumps between Mary Ann's
singing of "What Kind of Man Are You?" and her discovery of a hotel
tryst between Ray and Margie. The screenplay by James L. White is
also strong despite some cliched lines (i.e. "For once, I'm doing
something for me"). The cinematography, too, is fine, conjuring the
dark smokiness of jazz clubs and the gaudy color of early-60's
televised concerts.
The film is not without a good deal of flaws. At 2 hours and 32 minutes, Ray
seems a little overlong. Ray Charles' life was packed with
turmoil, but the film feels the need to dramatize the minor snafus as
well as the life-changing conflicts; it loses some focus and momentum
as a result. Also, the film is hampered by an overly sentimental,
tie-up-the-loose-ends ending, and it's adherence to biopic convention
causes it to feel fairly predictable at times--even to a reviewer who
did not know much of Charles' life story.
Yet if Ray's
conventionality causes the film to strike discordant tones, it is often
set aright by the stunning rhythms and cadences of Foxx's performance.
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