Maybe with an empty bladder, it wouldn't have seemed so agonizingly long. Maybe if I hadn't had to pee so badly, I wouldn't have resented the interminable slo-mo shots, the lingering close-ups of inanimate objects like cufflinks, the lengthy pans over running water... If you cut out all the scenes where absolutely NOTHING happens and put all the slo-mo to regular speed, this would be a 90-minute movie.
All physical discomforts aside, I expected to like this movie a lot more than I actually did. Mainly my complaints were the, ah, leisurely pacing, the hokiness (I lost count of the number of silhouetted-against-the-sunset-or-open-barn-door and fuzzy-backlit-halo shots after the first hour), and not enough Sam Neill. Also, I had the disadvantage of knowing something about horses, riding, and "horse whispering," so I spotted a lot of stupid errors that probably wouldn't bother any of you. Like the fact that whatever Robert Redford's character is doing, 90% of it isn't horse whispering.
Plot in brief: after a grisly accident, a girl (who looks like the long-lost fourth Hanson brother) and her horse are mangled physically and emotionally. Girl's domineering mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) packs up up Hansonette and horse and treks them out to Montana to get the horse fixed up by a guy who's got a way with the equines (Redford). Turns out the guy's something of a people whisperer too -- everyone gets healed! Yay! (It's one of the movies where, in the climactic scene, everyone throws back their heads and laughs in slo-mo, and Hansonette throws her arms up in the air in triumph.) Oh yeah, and Thomas is all distant with her husband (Sam Neill) -- god knows why, because he seems like a great guy and he's younger than Redford, who still looks good, but needs backlighting and vaselined lenses to compete with Neill -- but that all gets fixed too.
The scenery is stunning, the horses are beautiful, and Redford, Thomas, and Neill all turn in fine performances. I also liked the thesis of the movie -- whether it was conscious or not -- that city dwellers are cut off from their emotional landscape because they're cut off from the natural landscape. Everyone in Montana is smiling and easy-going; everyone in Thomas's office in New York looks tense and pinched. All they really need is to get out in Montana for a few weeks and revert to a simpler way of life where pasta is called spaghetti. Then they will learn to live life to the fullest, accept that some things are beyond their control, and get lovely sun-streaks in their hair. See, that's why I'm so cynical about this movie: I've been too long in a city. I need to be packed into a trailer and shipped off to mountains and rivers and horses and cowboys to regain my ability to enjoy the simple things in life. I'm only half-joking here.
I didn't actually hear any of these things at the movie, but I thought some of them: Top 10 things overheard at The Horse Whisperer from David Letterman
10. "Loved the horse --- hated the whispering."
9. "That horse whisperer sure could horse whisper!"
8. "I've seen movies with horses, I've seen movies with whispering,
but I've never seen a movie with both horses and whispering."
7. "This was 10 times better than 'The Horse Mumbler.'"
6. "That Robert Redford can whisper my horse any day!"
5. "At the end of the credits, it read, 'No animals were actually
whispered
in the making of this film.'"
4. "It was such a dramatic moment when he finally raised his voice."
3. "My Uncle Earl used to shout at dogs."
2. "I liked it when the horse whispered, 'Get your fat ass off my
back.'"
1. "I thought this movie would be much better-er."
Back to homepage
Reviews A to F
Reviews G to L
Reviews M to R
Reviews S to Z
Search