Another day, another bio-pic.

I saw Ray yesterday and found it to be a good, but uneven film. There are some beautiful moments in the movie and the music just rocks and Jamie Foxx’s performance is AMAZING. But for a movie that goes for over 2 and a half hours, it seemed to lack substance. We get the idea that Ray was a junkie, that he was driven by his music, that he loved his women, but none of this seems to hang together. And when the movie ends, it’s so sudden you feel you’ve missed something.

The move also reduces Ray’s career from ’65 to 2003 to three lines on the screen – which sort of kills the effect the move was trying to achieve: That Ray was a giant and a genuis in his field.

And as usual, like mpst bio-pics, the accuracy is all over the place. It’s better than Finding Neverland, but still certain things are left out. The fact that Ray had 12 children with 7 women. The fact he married twice. The criticism he faced when he went to South Africa in 1981 (actually that would have been an amazing contrast, considering Ray had been so active in the Black Rights Movements in the ’60s).

Ray Charles was involved in the making of the film, and I suppose there were certain stories he believed the movie didn’t need to tell. And that’s fine, it was his life, and his bio-pic. And yet when the movie is finished you feel there were a whole bunch of missed opportunities. There’s also one scene at the very end of the film that nearly undercuts the entire 2 and a half hours. It’s so god-awful you can only imagine how it made into the final cut. You’ll know it when you see it.

Still, I recommend you see Ray if only for Jamie Foxx’s marvellous performance (that man deserves an Oscar) and all that great music!!!!