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“Move over Reese Witherspoon,” said Us Weekly when it was announced that Alaskan singer-songwriter-poet Jewel would star as June Carter Cash in the Lifetime original movie Ring of Fire. You might recall that Witherspoon won an Oscar for her portrayal of Carter Cash in the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. One time Jewel played Jewel on The Young and the Restless. Lifetime used the Us Weekly quote in just about every commercial leading up to Ring of Fire‘s December 6 premiere, but as we all know Reese Witherspoon is not moving anywhere (‘cept to a new mansion, maybe) and even intimating that Jewel’s performance would outdo Witherspoon’s is foolish and cruel. It’s like printing, “Move over, Meryl Streep! Meredith Baxter is gonna knock your socks off as Margaret Thatcher in the Lifetime original Pearls Before Swine: The Margaret Thatcher Story.” (I’m working on this script as we speak.)
By the movie’s first commercial break, June is grown, married, and has a child, which is to say that not a whole lot of love is given to her formative years. The choppy narrative rushes us forward as quickly as possible to June’s years-long flirtation and, eventually, love affair with Cash, slowing only for key events, most of which involve the men in her orbit. We watch Carter as she sits with her guitar and writes one of Cash’s biggest hits (they didn’t call it Ring of Fire just because Walk the Line was already taken).
