Ray Gives Viewers Rare Inside Glimpse of Artist
By Joe Tracy, Publisher of Hollywood Lot Magazine

When it was learned that Ray Charles would closely consult on the movie Ray, many may have felt that we would see only the accomplishments of one of the greatest musicians of all time. But that wasn’t the case as Ray Charles himself encouraged the director to explore the darker sides of his life and leave no stone unturned. And Ray does just that. The movie gives a nicely balanced glimpse into the success, failure, drugs, womanizing, and trauma that Ray Charles faced as a blind musician.

Directed by Taylor Hackford, Ray does an amazing job of exploring the early years of Ray Robinson, whose name was changed to Ray Charles because it was a better sounding “name” for his performances (Charles is his official middle name). Hackford’s long-time friendship and interest in Ray Charles really shines through on the screen. But shining even brighter is an amazing performance by Jaime Foxx as Ray.

Foxx is so good at his performance of Ray Charles that it’s easy to think that you are actually seeing Ray himself perform. It helps that Foxx is an accomplished pianist and that early in filming he had the real Ray Charles as a guide. But that doesn’t make performing a blind drug-using award-winning musician any easier. Through his moves and grooves, Foxx gives an Oscar worthy performance in making Ray real to the audience.

At nearly two and half hours, Ray does a great job of covering the early years of the musician’s life, but the movie falters at the end, spending about two minutes (literally) on covering the last 40 years of the life of Ray Charles. In some ways you feel cheated that the movie wasn’t labeled “Part 1”. But that doesn’t take away from the successful way that Ray covers the biggest disaster of Ray’s life. You may think it was his blindness. That was only a setback. His biggest disaster was the death of his younger brother when they were children and this theme hauntingly returns to grab Ray (and the audience) in an effective use of flashbacks.

Ray Charles was an exemplary human being because he showed that in the face of adversity you can still make something of your life. But even more important, the movie shows Ray Charles as a human; one who makes mistakes. And the fact that Ray Charles, who died a few months before the film’s release, pressed the director to focus on his mistakes shows the type of human being this amazing man truly was.

Ray is rated PG-13.