Despite having leading roles in her resume and a just-released directorial effort, it feels appropriate that this weekend's birthday-girl Regina King's Oscar is for Best Supporting Actress. From the very start of her career, she's been a consummate scene-stealer, adding energy and blinding charisma to the margins of her productions. One remembers the actress' superb comedic debut in Boyz n the Hood, the unimprovable hilarity of Jerry Maguire, the two awards-winning turning points in her career, TV's American Crime and the big screen's If Beale Street Could Talk. Still, it's hard not to wish that her big break had come sooner since the quality has always been there. In other words, how in the hell did King get next to no awards buzz for her captivating performance in Best Picture-nominee Ray?...
I wish I could write about this performance in the Almost There series. However, apart from ensemble honors and a couple of other non-major precursors, Regina King's turn as Margie Hendricks, Ray Charles' tragic mistress and backup singer, was ignored during the 2004/2005 awards season. This is exceptionally sad when one considers that the actress is one of the picture's saving graces. Overall, Taylor Hackford's biopic of the music legend is a paint-by-numbers affair, brought down by its cradle-to-grave narrative conventions. The period design and expansive supporting cast keep it from unsalvageable mediocrity, but, for someone like me who has a bias against most prestige biopics, the movie's a chore.
Among the collection of supporting actors, the performers that play the principal women of Charles' life get the juiciest roles and the best opportunities to blow the movie open with searing emotion. No mausoleum-like photography or stodgy staging can contain the presence of people like Kerry Washington, Aunjanue Ellis, and, of course, the one and only Regina King. She takes over an hour to arrive at the film but, when she does, it's impossible to take our eyes away from her Margie. Singing with a sly smile in a small studio, King's like the star of a romantic drama barging her way into Ray and effortlessly stealing the spotlight away from all that surrounds her, including Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning mimicry.
The first thing that jumps out after one gets used to the smile is how much King can manage and modulate tone. As soon as the singing ends, she's cheekily enmeshed in contract negotiations with the famous musician. It's flirting in the costume of business, a show of self-amused confidence that inspires some honest chuckles from the viewer, even those who've been partially numbed by the movie's lethargic travail through biopic tropes. It also serves as a humorous prelude for one of Ray's most interesting sequences, when Margie's seduction of the star is seen through the eyes of his former lover. Suddenly her smiles aren't so lovingly romantic but a charming piece of warfare.
Even though King is often presented as part of the Raylettes when not sharing bedroom scenes with Foxx, there's never any doubt that we're standing in the presence of a star who's just waiting for her chance to shine. It's impossible to care that her singing voice doesn't match her speaking sound, not when she's having so much fun lip-synching, bringing sexiness to the proceedings as well as a shade of pride that hints at the character's sad downfall. Not that pridefulness is the key to Margie's destruction. If anything, it's her willingness to indulge and partake in her beau's self-annihilating tendencies that decide her fate. Even when the bloom of infatuation is still bright, the flower of this relationship stinks of toxic love.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't allow King to telegraph Margie's descent as an organic progression. In one scene, she's reaching for a glass to drown her broken heart at one of Ray's casual cruelties. Right in the next moment, she's already an unprofessional mess boozing it up at a recording session and swiveling like a habitual drunkard. Still, even as the character becomes more outwardly antagonistic towards her lover, King allows more vulnerabilities to show through. In half an hour, she goes from sensual vixen shining from the background to a crying wreck, sobbing in paroxysms of despondence, despair, and fury. If there were any doubts, King had star quality in 2004, Maggie's final scenes in Ray make the matter clear.
While writing the hit single "Hit the Road Jack", she and Ray fight in their hotel room. She tells him she's pregnant and lays it all bare, opening her heart and letting its pulpy mess horrify the audience and perchance conquer our compassion. Her voice breaks, her face crumbles, her body seems tense with the force of holding back a scream. It only becomes worse as Ray keeps playing the piano, their commotion bleeding into the song. Suddenly, the tune is done and performed on stage, the cutting and King's face making it clear that Margie is singing for no audience but her man. With a stare that could kill, King shows that it's over between them, and as she leaves Ray in the cold morning, her sorrow hides no hope that he holds her back. She's ready to leave for good. It all hurt too much.
After her departure, Margie doesn't return. The last we hear of her comes when the erstwhile Raylette dies, a telephone call telling the protagonist of a deadly overdose that left one of his kids without a mother. It's a devastating moment in many regards, but it's mostly due to King's performance and presence that the loss reverberates through the very fabric of the movie, its form, its reality. One almost feels the need to recite Auden and demand that all the clocks be stopped, cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. The poet was right. After such a sorrowful end, nothing can ever come to any good. What an actress and what a star! Thankfully, awards bodies only took about a decade longer to finally see that, and now Regina King's getting all the praise she always deserved.
Ray is streaming on HBO Max and DirecTV. You can also rent it from most services.