Jamie Foxx is superb in his performance as Ray Charles. It's the screenplay that lacks strength.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published October 28, 2004
[Photo: Universal Studios]
Jamie Foxx stars as musical legend Ray Charles in Ray. Foxx, an accomplished pianist, handled most of the keyboard moves.
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One thing a movie about Ray Charles should never lack is rhythm. Certainly it's there in the music. It's also in the tick-tock mannerisms and melodious cadence of Charles' raspy voice, impersonated to perfection by Jamie Foxx, who richly deserves an Academy Award nomination.
But rhythm of a cinematic sort is lacking to a noticeable degree in Taylor Hackford's Ray, specifically in the screenplay by James L. White. Both artists want to avoid the chronological pattern so many biographies adopt on screen, instead using flashbacks to cover childhood events and montages to condense Charles' successes and problems. It's wise to be different, but only if being different will get the job done.
That isn't always the case with Ray. Nothing gets confusing but nearly everything seems disconnected. Putting the pieces together in your mind sometimes leaves disappointing gaps. By the end of a movie that's too long, viewers may still believe they haven't learned enough. Fans can insist that's what happens when such an expansive life is tackled by filmmakers. Critics can insist that better filmmakers would make it work.
Foxx immediately pulls us into his characterization, emulating the tentative posture of a sightless man without a shred of pity. Charles' sense of humor, his ability to think on his feet, is obvious from the moment he claims to be a D-day veteran in order to board a bus traveling from Florida to Seattle. Why Seattle? We aren't told. But the essence of Ray Charles, the man, not the musician, is quickly established.
We watch as Charles is taken in by other musicians, then taken by them. We sense his growing independence as musical genius trumps society's skittishness about capabilities of the blind. The songs are mostly covers at the time, but the talent is blazingly original. We know what will eventually happen, but these glimpses at the first steps on a storied road - meeting an equally struggling Quincy Jones (Larenz Tate) and signing a recording deal - are golden.
There's also a place in a movie about Ray Charles to examine his sharecropper childhood in Florida, where his sight gradually failed and a family tragedy shaped his psyche. But what was his medical condition, and what does that tragedy mean after Hackford and White define it? One scene of little Ray plunking a few piano notes with an old-timer hardly explains his future keyboard prowess.
One scene of Charles refusing to play a segregated concert in Georgia doesn't fully describe his civil rights activism. His crossovers to R&B from gospel and country music are underestimated. By barely mentioning his enrollment at St. Augustine School for the Blind, the film skips over a key chapter in Charles' personal and musical development.
No, the anchors of Hackford's film are staples of movie biographies: terrific set and costume designs, and vice. Of all musical inspirations - or impediments - sex and drugs are always the easiest to convey. Charles settles into a pleasing yet unfulfilling pattern of infidelity, hit songs and heroin binges, followed by more hit songs and redemption. Once Charles kicks his bad habits, the movie ends 40 years before his life did, pausing once in 1979 for a feel-good finale.
Foxx's performance gets its juice from those vices, adding a mischievous or melancholy tone to the joyful spirit of the man. Charles certainly isn't a saint. Neither is he an unrepentant sinner. He's sightless, yet keeps a close eye on his business dealings, the source of some funny moments. Foxx gets to portray the pained detox scenes that lifted, say, Lady Sings the Blues from rote musical biography to harrowing drama.
Mostly, we're impressed with Foxx's unerring devotion to playing a blind person, dodging most of the tics and bogus hand-reaching that many sighted actors use. Foxx wore special contact lenses that rendered him sightless without showing off a milky, locked stare as many actors would be tempted to do. Neither does he overplay Charles' signature move, hugging the audience in spirit. It's a masterfully natural portrayal revealing loads of research and affection.
An accomplished pianist, Foxx handled most of the keyboard moves. His award chances may be slightly hampered by the fact that he's expertly lip-synching to Charles' singing voice, the way the tactic affected Angela Bassett's otherwise spot-on portrayal of Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It. Both actors are the driving force behind movies that had slim chances of matching their subjects' dynamism.
Ray is a wonderful eulogy that Charles blessed before his April death. It was then titled Unchain My Heart, after one of his classic songs. As forthright as he must have been, the rascally legend might have suggested a title with a twist on another hit: You (Still) Don't Know Me.
Grade: B
Director: Taylor Hackford
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Regina King, Kerry Washington, Clifton Powell, Harry Lennix, Bokeem Woodbine, Curtis Armstrong, Richard Schiff, Larenz Tate
Screenplay: James. L. White
Rating: PG-13; drug abuse, profanity, sexual situations
