THE HORSE WHISPERER (1998)
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Robert Redford
Written by: Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin, from the novel by Nicholas Evans
Starring: Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Neill
Tom Booker: Robert Redford Annie MacLean: Kristin Scott Thomas Grace MacLean: Scarlett Johansson Robert MacLean: Sam Neill Diane Booker: Dianne Wiest
Ingredients: Traumatized girl and horse, magazine editor mother, animal psychologist cowboy, lawyer dad
Synopsis: In big city Manhattan, a girl named Grace (Scarlett Johansson) has teenage angst ("Who is ever going to want me now!?). Her mother Annie, a magazine editor (Kristin Scott Thomas), is too tightly wound and bored ("The layout is too perfect. I'm bored. Do it over!"). Meanwhile Dad Robert (Sam Neill) fears an unequal relationship with Mom ("I always knew I loved you more than you loved me!"). When Grace and the horse get into an accident, it sets up a situation where Mom, Grace, and the horse must stay at the Montana ranch of the lonely horse specialist Tom Booker (Robert Redford) and his extended family. Booker is a horse whisperer (horse psychologist).
But the real star of this drama is the state of Montana, portrayed as an idyllic, magical place of healing and family values. Will the horse, the girl, the dad, and the mom get healed by their contact with nature?
Opinion: Although the advertisements have tried to portray this film as the next BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (and a romance subplot does begin to develop after the first hour and a half has passed), THE HORSE WHISPERER is really mainly about healing under the beautiful auspices of the storybook Montana countryside.
Understandably, cinematography plays a huge role in THE HORSE WHISPERER, and it is done well here. You'll see it all: bold skies and deep sunsets, snowfall, aerial shots, lots of close ups of eyes (the window to the soul), and even the meticulous laying down of Dad's silver cufflinks, one by one.
Characterization is also good. Even the horse does a good job. Each of the characters is deep, with hidden secrets.
As far as acting is concerned, Kristin Scott Thomas basically carries the film; she's in nearly every single scene, and dialogue by other characters is minimal, though the scenes are well acted. The chemistry between Kristin Scott Thomas and Robert Redford is suspicious because Annie MacLean is an uptight, hyperactive woman, while Redford as Tom Booker is a mystical minimalist, but the plot explains that Booker hasn't seen a woman for a while after his divorce.
One technique that doesn't work so well is something I call dialogue after the fact. For example, the camera focuses seductively on lonely Robert Redford hungrily reacting to the sight of Kristin Scott Thomas' swinging legs during the first hour of THE HORSE WHISPERER, but in one later scene he unexpectedly blurts out, "Don't you ever sit still?" Or throughout the entire movie teenage Grace never looks in a mirror, never wears make up, or eye-catching clothing, but she burst into tears and cries to her mother that no boys will like her as a handicapped person. Similarly, when the seemingly successful lawyer Dad visits Mom in Montana, he makes the unexpected confession that he never thought he was good enough for her. As the movie meanders about Montana, with mother nature moving at her own gentle pace, the characters make sudden confessions that seem to revise the history of earlier events. The idea here, is that nature is a magical place that causes the repressed insecurities of city folk to be drawn out and healed - - and that contact with the horse whisperer, a natural man, acts as the catalyst to liberation.
Although too much script emphasis is placed on the Mom character, and it can also get a bit tedious watching nature all the time, there is enough great cinematography, good acting, good characters, and healing in THE HORSE WHISPERER to make this an enjoyable movie.
Reviewed by David Sunga May 15, 1998
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