Movie Review: Ray

Ray

More than a month before Ray opened this weekend, there was Oscar™ buzz about the movie's star, Jamie Foxx. That buzz is probably the only reason I saw Ray. I'm not a fan of Ray Charles' music—or, in fact, jazz or blues in general. Now that I've seen Ray, I'm still not at all a fan of the music. I am, however, a fan of Ray Charles.

Ray Charles Robinson was born into the kind of poverty most of us can't imagine really exists. His mother, Aretha (Sharon Warren, making her movie debut) takes in laundry to make ends meet while she plays single mother to her two young boys, Ray and George (the children's father is never seen, and mentioned only once later in the movie). Aretha repeatedly tells her boys that they must "learn to read and write good" so they don't have to work as hard as she does. But two childhood tragedies changed Ray's life forever. When he was five, he saw his brother die. Shortly thereafter, glaucoma began to take his eyesight and by the age of seven he was blind. But his mother refuses to let either Ray or herself consider his blindness a handicap, and so that her hopes for her son might still be realized she sends him off to a school for the blind.

Music, it goes without saying, is Ray's greatest gift and love. From the moment he finishes school, he's working to get gigs at small bars and clubs. With his prodigious talent and drive, it's only a matter of time until he sees his success grow to the point where he has a manager, a recording contract, and sold-out tours. But his personal life is another story. His beautiful wife, Della Bea (Kerry Washington) knows her husband isn't being faithful to her; his good and trusted friend, Clifton Powell (Jeff Brown), is torn between loyalty to Ray and his disgust at Ray's behavior; and the women he loves and leaves are hurting and angry in his wake (among them are Aunjanue Ellis as singer Mary Ann Fisher, and Regina King as one third of the Raylettes, Margie Hendrix). And threatening his music, his family, and his very life is his longtime addiction to heroin.

Ray was, for me, only okay as a movie. Some disjointedness in the script (or perhaps the edits of an even longer movie) make the first 15 minutes or so jarring and somewhat confusing. And despite feeling like things were missing, the film also felt much too long. Jamie Foxx is, indeed, very good, but I didn't get that feeling from his performance that I've got in the past when I knew without a doubt I was watching an Oscar™ being earned (Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Halle Berry in Monster's Ball). "Very good" isn't extraordinary, and there are some films yet to open this year that have the potential for extraordinary performances (not the least among them the forthcoming Johnny Depp film Finding Neverland). The supporting cast is quite good, particularly Regina King whose anguish combines with anger at the man she loves far more than he loves her. Sharon Warren is also terrific as Ray's mother.

The production values were good; the sets and costumings were, as far as I could tell, quite authentic. But this is a moving story, and I wasn't moved; it's an uplifting story, and I wasn't uplifted. Unless there's some really bad acting involved (and there isn't in this movie), that typically means that either the direction or the script are to blame. In Ray, I think they both bear some of the fault.

But on a positive note, I said when I began that I've come away from the film as a Ray Charles fan, and that's true. Without the movie, this is a story I likely wouldn't have otherwise known, and I'm grateful to have seen it. Ray Charles—who did approve of the film and who "saw" a rough cut before he died last spring—was more than just a musician the critics called a genius. He was a singularly courageous and determined man, and, for all his flaws, was also a good one.

POLITICAL NOTES: Ray Charles was born into abject poverty. He went blind at a young age. And yet he managed to look for work, get jobs, and work so hard that success was all but inevitable for him. Yes, he was a very talented musician. But the point is that it didn't occur to him to ask for charity. In fact, at one point in the movie, he mentions a life where he might be found holding out a tin cup and dismisses it as something his mother told him was unacceptable, an opinion with which he all too obviously agrees. He also managed to deal with the extreme racial prejudices of the deep south in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and when segregation became a real and often violent civil rights issue, he made his point by simply refusing to perform. If a poor blind man can not only accept, but can glory in, personal responsibility, what's wrong with the rest of us? And his essential boycott of segregated clubs was entirely non-violent, but very effective as a tool of political activism. Yep, I'm definitely a fan of the man.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Ray is rated PG-13 for the "depiction of drug addiction, sexuality, and some thematic moments." Most kids, even those into their teens, probably aren't going to like this movie much anyway. The music isn't their type; the themes are both adult and old-fashioned (how many teens do you know today that would bat an eye at a husband's infidelity or who could truly understand the stigma in those days of an addiction?); and there aren't any chase scenes or explosions. But if you've got kids that really want to go, I'd say that the movie is okay for kids 14 or so and up. For adults who like Ray Charles and/or his type of music, and those who'd like a glimpse into recent American history that seems somehow the distant past, Ray will prove a satisfying film.