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A sentimental animal >> Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer is weepie but not lame by MATTHEW HAYS
There is a certain irony, then, in Redford's latest entry: The Horse Whisperer is, without a doubt, one of the most conventional films to come out in years. It is old fashioned and steeped in nostalgia for the good old days, when people hung out on farms and acted all rugged and didn't have to answer cell phones or any of that kind of thing. Before I get sounding too cynical, I should make it clear that The Horse Whisperer is actually quite a solid film. It features an excellent cast and has a good novel as its basis. Scarlett Johansson, in a truly inspired performance, plays a 14-year-old girl who loses part of her leg in a horrific riding accident. Her horse, Pilgrim, is also in rough shape, but Johansson's mother, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, insists that the animal not be put down. Instead, she wants to take the horse to a "horse whisperer," someone who can act as a kind of therapist for the horse, helping to cure it of its hysterical post-accident behaviour. Enter Redford, who, at 60, still looks pretty darn good. Thomas, who leaves her high-powered job as an editor to take her daughter and horse to Redford's ranch, soon finds herself wet for the whisperer. Who can blame her? He rides horses, but he's real sensitive too, and he looks much better in a pair of Levis than her husband (Sam Neill) ever did. It's all fairly predictable (alternate titles: The Horse Patient, The Horses of Madison County), but is reasonably well executed. The cinematography is the real star of the film; each shot is gorgeously composed, there are plenty of sunsets, pretty farmland--all postcard worthy. Redford isn't a half-bad actor either, and his cast is perfect save for Dianne Wiest, who is ludicrously miscast as a not-entirely-happy little southern ranchwife. His direction is also competent, but he has the nagging habit of simply slipping into slo-mo whenever he wants to let the audience know they're watching something sad or serious. There are far too many shots of the horses running in slo-mo (what, are these horses bionic or something?). For all its troubles, Redford has created a first-rate weepie, a melodrama that will undoubtedly please audiences in search of standard, conventional fare. But let's have no more talk of Redford as an independent spirit; ultimately, he's one of the most conventional forces in cinema today. The Horse Whisperer opens Friday, May 15. See film listings for showtimes
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American icon Robert Redford is now in the press less for his filmmaking endeavours than for his leadership in promoting young new talent. His Sundance Film Festival has become one of the most important in the world, promising each January to introduce a host of new faces into cinemas everywhere. The fest has become famous for its offbeat indie fare, bringing all-important press and subsequent distribution deals to such films as Poison and Heavy.