Every once in a while, an acting performance comes along that not only carries a movie, but redefines a career and monopolizes all further conversations about the year's best. Tom Hanks did it in \Forrest Gump."" Charlize Theron did it in ""Monster."" And, now, Jamie Foxx has done it with ""Ray,"" a biographical film about the great soul singer, Ray Charles. The movie is ultimately less about the singer than it is about Foxx's stunning ascent from a middling comedic actor into the ranks of America's best dramatic screen performers.
The movie follows Charles (Foxx) from his start in Seattle where he paid his dues and carried a backing-band gig on the chitlin circuit through most of the peak of his career. It chronicles the beginnings of his marriage and troubled times when he took on multiple mistresses and became addicted to heroin, while following his rising career and business transactions with Atlantic Records. Much of ""Ray's"" story is also presented in flashbacks to present Charles' childhood in a poor northern Florida sharecropping community, telling the story of his younger brother's drowning in a tragic accident, and Charles losing his vision soon afterwards.
Biopics are a tough genre, with many standard pitfalls, and ""Ray"" falls prey to most of them. Director Taylor Hackford (""An Officer and a Gentleman""), who also co-wrote the film with first-time screenwriter James L. White, often seems more concerned with listing Ray Charles' accomplishments in a bullet point fashion than he does with defining his character and lending insight to the
evolution of a great musician and icon.
Though accurately portrayed for their often tragic roles in Charles' life, Hackford still doesn't hesitate to sensationalize sex and drugs. Meanwhile, other aspects of the singer's world are glossed over. Racists are declawed in idealistically fictional ways, often treated as laughable Elmer Fudds to Charles' Bugs Bunny. The movie also simplifies all the key figures in the story of Charles' career. Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records, for example, were fascinating characters in real life, but in the film are cast aside as generic ethnic record executives and sometimes as character-less cheerleaders for Charles' musical talent.
But Foxx redeems all the movie's storytelling flaws. For all that the script fails to reach the heart of Charles' complicated character, Foxx's vitality and absorption into the role pulse through the film with a rare energy that forgives the staleness of its overall approach. At first, Foxx's performance is so showy that it seems like a superficially mannered one. But as the 152-minute film rolls on, Foxx disappears, and a nuanced, soulful and honestly complicated vision of Charles appears. Even aside from the spot-on grin and swaying piano-playing, Foxx captures the sly humor and ever-present humanity of Charles' persona while staring his deep character flaws and heartbreaking mistakes in the face.
""Ray"" is too long, too hammy and too uncomfortably structured, but it really doesn't matter. The extra length may not be spent well in capturing the story of Ray Charles, but it gives Foxx time to capture his magic and soul. The supporting characters or nuanced back-story might not be there, but a man who could not be completely confined by race, genre or disability is portrayed with rare depth by an actor who transcends the confines of the movie and his past career. That's special.
