Okay, so today I am cheating.

I watched Ray, the biopic of Ray Charles, starring Jamie Foxx, which lead to Foxx winning the Academy Award for Best Actor. However, it absolutely falls into the category that I spoke about at the beginning of the Genre-ary DailyView. It is not a musical. 

It did have musical listed on the summary for the movie, but it is one of those movies that has music in it, is even about music, but is not a musical. I did say at the beginning of this month that I might not follow that rule as I was going through it and so I have broken it.

According to IMDB, “The story of Ray Charles (played by Jamie Foxx), music legend. Told in his adult life with flashbacks to his youth we see his humble origins in Florida, his turbulent childhood, which included losing his brother and then his sight, his rise as pianist in a touring band, him writing his own songs and running his own band, and then stardom. Also includes his addiction to drugs and its affect on his working life and family life.“

Jamie Foxx is sensational as the legendary performer. He seemingly brought back to life the larger than life character of Ray Charles Robinson, better known to the world as just Ray Charles. 

The biopic sections of this movie are the best parts. Watching Foxx develop Ray through his relationships, his struggle to find the right sound, his drug habit and other problems was the standout of this film.

The music was used well, but I could have used more of it. It seemed to only give a flavor of the songs in the film. Again, another reason why I would not consider this a musical, necessarily.

I thought the weakest part of the movie were the daydreams/delusions that Ray would have flashing back to the traumatic event of his brother’s death. The appearance of water in his suitcase or on the floor were too cartoony for what the movie was trying to go for. This felt way too artsy for the story. The straight up flashbacks were considerably more powerful and more effective than that.

I do appreciate that the film did not shy away from some of the negative aspects of his life. Many of these types of musical biopics leave out major issues in favor of a more positive spin. We see Ray Charles and his drug addiction, which led to his arrest, and his extra-marital affairs, one which even gave him a son.

Along with Jamie Foxx, the strong cast included Regina King, Kerry Washington, Clifton Powell, Sharon Warren, Richard Schiff, Larenz Tate, Terrence Howard, Wendell Pierce, Bokeem Woodbine, and even Moonlighting’s Herbert Viola, Curtis Armstrong, himself. I was able to get past my dislike of that actor because of his Moonlighting role. Being fair, he did a solid job here.

This was a movie with a lot of good and some areas where I would have liked something different. Jamie Foxx is tremendous as are the rest of the cast (shout out to Kerry Washington for her role as Charles’s wife, Bee). Ray is a touch long and, not really a musical, but it is a solid film overall.