Yesterday I took my grandma, my mom, my daughter and my niece to see the new Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line.

It followed the same pattern most biographical feature films do: The star overcomes childhood hardships, is poor for a while, gets discovered, becomes a huge star, faces personal demons, overcomes said demons and then lives happily ever after. There are few surprises here for people already familiar with Cash and his life. Never-the-less, the film was well done and the acting was superb (I was worried about how Joaquin Phoenix was going to do as Cash but he nailed it, Reese Witherspoon was the obvious choice for June Carter Cash).

One thing I especially enjoyed was the film's tasteful handling of the "personal demons" segments of the film. We all know that Johnny had some serious substance abuse problems and the film did a good job of portraying them, but it didn't get as gory as it could have. Obviously, the drugs and alcohol were part of what made Johnny what he was. Arguably, without them he never would have come together with June Carter, and his collaboration with her (on a personal and professional level) was part of what made Johnny so wonderful. And there is always the fact that out of great torment comes great art, but the film didn't dwell on it. A lot of these biographies let the negative aspects of the subject overpower the entire film. This, thankfully, wasn't one of them. Johnny's life got a balanced and honest review.

One of Johnny's daughters by his first wife was upset by the way her mother was written into the movie. She claimed the the movie made her other look a little too...shrewish. That may be a fair criticism, though I think it's hard for anybody outside Johnny's circle of family and friends to say for sure.

If I had to improve one thing I would have the movie focus more on Johnny's later career and collaborations with other artists. Johnny is a legend not necessarily because of his musicianship or song-writing abilities but rather because he transcended musical boundaries. And he did this, largely, through collaboration with other artists and covers of their songs. He proved that trying to put music into easily-defined labels is pointless and that the only criteria we ever need when making up our minds about a song is whether or not we enjoy listening to it or playing it (if we're lucky enough to have musical talents). In Johnny's early days he toured with the likes of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Later in life he played with the likes of Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristoferson, Hank Williams Jr., and Fiona Apple. His last hit, in fact, was a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song.

This aspect of Johnny's career wasn't really made clear in the movie (which ended up being almost exclusively about the love story between Johnny and June) but I guess you can only cover so much in one movie.

The long and short of it is that this movie is probably about what most Johnny Cash fans had in mind upon learning of the intent to make a biography of the man in black. If you're a Cash newbie (or worse, don't know who he is at all) you might not get much out of the movie.

If you are a Cash fan, though, you'll probably love it. This fan did.