Nov 01, 2004 12:11 PM
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(Updated Nov 03, 2004 03:48 AM)
Jamie Foxx pulls off a powerful portrayal of the formative years in the life of American musician Ray Charles (1930-2004). The sequence of events in his life between 1948 and 1962, form the base of this spellbinding film!
The movie was in the making for a long time and was released in the US on Oct 29th 2004. The movie starts off showing Jamie Foxx (as Ray) moving from Florida to Seattle in the year 1952 and traces his rise to fame as a music composer. As he starts off performing in small clubs in Seattle, he faces several adversities owing to his being blind and black – and he dares to fight back.
A troubled soul
As he suffers from hallucinations, we get a indication that he’s had quite a haunting past – and truly so, as his traumatic childhood days are well brought out in flashback scenes that are interleaved at the right moments.
Watching his younger brother trip into a washing tub and drown tragically, – an event that he wasn’t really accountable for, has instilled a strong sense of guilt in him.After going blind at age 7 due to an illness the hallucinations of water & a human leg continue to grip him...
The flashback scenes are dramatic and visually powerful. The mother’s character is wonderfully etched. As she makes her son promise that he would never allow himself to be crippled in life due to his handicap, her faint desperation and furious determination are wonderfully portrayed and add the much-needed power to this emotional saga.
A star is made!
The narration is spellbinding, as the movie traces his rise from a small performer to a renowned artist.
One of my favorite scenes is when he tells Kerry washington (who would later become his wife) to listen to the hummingbird outside the window, about 20 feet away... Even as she is baffled, he says 'you have to listen!'...
Blind as he was, he used his ears as his eyes & never let the blindness handicap his life!
The movie never compromises on authenticity and proceeds at an unhurried pace, with his captivating music moving the story ahead. After getting a contract deal from Atlanta Records, he reinvents himself to compose his own brand of music that sets the American music industry on fire!
The racial bias that existed in the US then is showed convincingly, as Ray is banned from performing in Georgia after he refuses to play before a segregated audience.
Like most geniuses (is this a stereotype?!) he had addictions to women and drugs, which are are shown without any compromises. Margie Henricks (Regina King), a member of his backup group and one of his many women even goes to the extent of saying ‘On the Road, I’m Mrs. Charles’. But at the end of the movie, the impression we get of Ray is that of a man who didn’t think of these as addictions at all. Ray keeps repeating that the drugs aren’t affecting him or his work in any way. And when he casually asks Margie to abort their child, it appears as if he took to these addictions as way of life! The scene where his wife says that she knew of his affairs all the time and was supportive of him for the reason that she loved him & knew she couldn’t find another Ray offer insight into her psyche. And Ray’s subsequent outburst seems to show that his weaknesses were more due to his vulnerabilities than out of deliberation.
Fighting back...
…Arrested for drug abuse, Ray is forced into rehab, and scenes of his drug rehabilitation, where the chronic sufferings of a Heroin addict during the de-addiction follow. Through the intense mental trauma, Ray relives the pain of his childhood and & promises his mother he wouldn’t become a cripple again. And this determination helps him get over his addiction.
The Road Ahead!
The movie ends with the events in the year 1962, though there is a brief scene set in 1979 where he gets a public apology from the Georgia government over the previous incident.
Ray the musician was all set to continue his conquest of the music world, and to this day, his compositions are casting a spell on the audiences! In fact, the movie has such amazing soundtracks performed by Ray himself, and these songs are the driving force in the narration!
<u> The Cast: </u>
The cast blends overwhelmingly well with the movie. The characters of his mother and his wife stand out, though. Jamie Foxx transforms into Ray himself. Nothing less than an Oscar would be honor enough for this powerhouse performance! For a movie of this sort, it is important that the pace of the movie doesn’t get too slow. And Ray strikes the balance between art and commercial cinema - an authentic portrayal of the life of a musical genius. For fans of intense drama and realistic narration, RAY is a MUST see!
see!
