Born Ray Charles Robinson in 1930 in a poor part of Georgia, the singer and pianist we know simply as Ray Charles did not have the easiest of starts in life. Cared for by his single mother, he witnessed the drowning of his brother at a young age, and by seven, was blind in both eyes. Despite this, his mother entreated him to keep working and to never let his disability get the better of him. His drive and enthusiasm for life was soon to pay dividends in the form of a successful music career, with hits in the charts and a lucrative record contract. Yet his life was not all roses - addicted to heroin, Ray was nearly imprisoned more than once and had extra-marital affairs. Would heroin be the end of his family life? And how would it affect his musical career?

Jamie Foxx is truly superb as Ray Charles. As the legend only died in 2004, I have seen him on television and was always captivated by his habit of swinging from side to side while talking. Foxx manages to imitate this perfectly, as well as the facial expressions. However, his skills go further than just looking like Ray Charles; I was completely convinced for the course of the film that he was Ray Charles - it really is a performance that drags the viewer in. Foxx really came up trumps when he had to portray Ray on drugs and Ray in rehab - those scenes are the most poignant of the whole film. There has been some criticism of Foxx for not having sung the songs himself - unlike Joaquin Pheonix in Walk the Line with much success - personally, I don't think this is at all important, because the chances of finding someone who sings as well as Ray Charles are not high and I would far rather have listened to the real thing.

The story starts off quite promisingly as it moves from the present day (which for Ray is the 1950s), back to the 1930s when little Ray was growing up. I particularly liked the flashbacks to the time he spent with his mother, because this shows where Ray got his determination to succeed from; his mother, forced to struggle to survive, was a fighter and was determined that Ray would not curl up and die because of his disability. The flashbacks were also the most visually attractive part of the film - I particularly liked the shots of a tree hung with coloured bottles, which Ray is to remember with great fondness in later life. Apart from that, the rest of the film is a rather visually boring collection of scenes from Ray's life and little attempt is made to step it up a little.

There is a UK rating of 15 on this film and I think that is about correct. There is very little nudity, sex or swearing, but some of the scenes where Ray is abusing drugs are a little close to the bone. They aren't graphic enough to be able to teach viewers how to shoot up, but there are detailed pictures of the implements that he uses to do so. In other countries, the rating seems to be 12, however, so perhaps I am being overly cautious.

There are extras with the DVD. First of all, there are two versions of the film: the theatrical version and the extended scene version. Whatever you do, choose the theatrical version. The other version is basically the theatrical version with extended scenes clumsily inserted into it at approximately the right moment. This makes watching extremely disjointed and is very annoying. I would much rather that the extended scenes had been collected together so that viewers could watch them separately if they so wish. Then there is a feature commentary by director Taylor Hackford that accompanies the theatrical version of the film - this needs to be switched on through the special features section. Finally, there is a descriptive audio feature for the visually impaired. I was quite disappointed - I would have liked a behind the scenes documentary or a documentary about Ray's life, but that wasn't to be.