Today's Netflix: The Horse Whisperer. This was a 1998 critical flop but commercial success directed by and starring Robert Redford as a rugged rancher type who manages to deal with problem horses by, apparently, staring at them until they get the idea. Or something of the sort. There apparently were some real-life training methods that were described in detail in the original book that the movie is based on, but of course that all got mangled for the movie due to the limitations of movie-making. Movies just aren't set up to depict multi-page treatises on horse training, apparently.
Now, the basic problem is that there is no -- zero -- chemistry between Robert Redford and his supposed love interest in this film, Kristin Scott Thomas. The psychotic horse that is the plot device used to push Redford and Thomas together has more chemistry with Redford than Thomas does, and Redford and the horse are mostly just staring at each other. Thomas excels when she's portraying a driven pushy micromanaging mother who's not quite as firm and decisive as she likes to pretend, but the 30 minutes or so of the film where she and Redford are mooning over each other are just a total waste of time. And by waste of time, I mean a *lot* of time -- this movie drags out for over two freakin' hours of wasted time.
So why do I give this film three herrings out of five? Mostly because of the performances of Thomas when not rote-acting her way through mooning over Redford, and, especially, the performance of a very young Scarlett Johansson as Grace, who portrays very well the anger, bitterness, insecurities and fears of a young teenage girl whose leg was lost in the same accident that somehow caused the horse to become psychotic. Johansson's character was driven by her perfectionist mother to herself seek perfection. Now suddenly she is very imperfect indeed in a very fundamental way and has to somehow deal with that. Tom Booker (Redford)'s interactions with Grace show an understanding of adolescent psychology that, as a former high school teacher, I "get" instinctively. There is a simple but effective chemistry between them as Redford's character slowly teases Grace out of her funk. If the 30 minutes devoted to sappy Kristin/Robert staring longingly at each other were chopped out and more attention paid to this sub-plot then this movie would have been a great horse/kid/family movie of tragedy, recovery, and redemption. As is, it's merely an overly-long decent movie flawed by over-indulgent directing by its formerly hunky but now just plain old star.
-- Badtux the Movie Penguin
yeah, that whole staring at the horse for hours just didn't make for good cinema.
ReplyDeletei loved johannson's turn in this. i looked her stuff up and marked my calendar for when she'd turn 18 and my thoughts would not be criminal. and redford was a pretty solid cowboy type. it's hard to emote for the camera when your whole persona is about not showing emotions. not a lot of actors are capable of pulling that shit off.
the horse work, including the hours of staring, is pretty accurate. in life, it's even more boring and time consuming. but, once you figure out how to work with the herd dynamics and use them to cajole the desired behaviors folks start talking about how you're supernatural and shit. when i train a horse it starts from the moment they hit the ground and isn't finished until the critter's around five.
big horse hint:
two games you'll never win with a horse. race, and tug 'o' war.
don't play that.
thus endeth the lesson.
I think Redford did a good job for the most part. I've known folks like that before and he hit the mark there. The problem is that there just was not any chemistry between him and Kristin Scott Thomas. The whole love affair thing just didn't work, I blame it more on Thomas than Redford (although I have to say it had to have been a difficult job to try to hold your own with Redford in those kinds of scenes because even at that advanced age Redford just oozed with raw sex appeal) but in the end this particular subplot fizzled rather than sizzled. I realize that it was a big part of the book and so chopping it out would have made the movie even less faithful to the book, but less time spent on something that was not working and more time spent on something that was working (the horse/girl part of the story, the interactions between the woman and her husband) probably would have done the movie a great favor.
ReplyDeleteBut Redford had to make sure he sealed his "hunk" status once and for all, so... (shrug). I blame it on over-indulgence. But I suppose it could have also been just a concession to rank commercialism, the audience wanted to see Redford do romance one last time, and Redford gave them what they wanted (obviously -- the movie was fairly cheap to make and pulled in a ton of money). All in all, I like the movie, but in the end it isn't the great movie it could have been, it's just a good movie. Certainly better than most of the trash out there, but it could have been so much better...
- Badtux the Movie Penguin
Oh, regarding scarlett johansson, note that I am not reviewing movies in the order that I viewed them. I viewed this movie a while ago, and remembered it when I remembered why I had added A Love Song for Bobby Long to my queue (i.e., after seeing the youngster's chops in this movie, I wanted to see what she did as an adult). I then went and looked up my NetFlix review and basically rewrote/enhanced it for the blog.
ReplyDeleteShe is well over 18 years of age now, so you're free to have any thoughts you wish about her :-). Not that, at our age, we would ever act on them. That would be ooky.
- Badtux the Appreciative Penguin
penguin dude, never underestimate the power of electric guitars and harps to overcome things like age and bald and bad leg and . . .
ReplyDeletestranger things have happened in hollywood after the fourth set.
I mostly agree with your review, except that I did like the end when she drives off crying into the sunset. For me, that was the first time in the film that I was really convinced she was human.
ReplyDeleteMy husband bought this movie years ago and expected me to sit through it with him.
ReplyDeleteFriggin' snoozefest for someone with zero interest in horses.
Bet your bip he doesn't expect that from me now.