Redford Fills Horse Whisperer With Quiet Reverence

Horses and women (and the connection between the two) have always been a mystery to me. Perhaps it was for that reason that I begged off seeing The Horse Whisperer as long as I could. The thought of sitting in a theater for nearly three hours to watch a story of women and horses did not appeal to me. I make no apologies. It's a chick flick. I'm a guy. It's that whole "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" thing.

Still, I went to see The Horse Whisperer with an open mind. While I can't say it was the best movie I ever saw, I found it interesting and mildly entertaining. The cinematography is beautiful, the story is touching (if little more than a paperback romance), and there were one or two good performances. Unfortunately, the story moved much too slowly for me, and I often found myself wondering if Robert Redford (who also directed) spent too much time looking at the scenery.

The Horse Whisperer was adapted from the best-selling book by Nicholas Evans. It tells the story of a young girl named Grace (Scarlett Johansson) who is in an accident with her horse, Pilgrim. The young girl loses her lower right leg and the horse suffers massive injuries. What ensues appears, on the surface, to be her mother's (Kristin Scott Thomas) attempt to heal the girl and the horse. As the film plays out, however, it becomes more Annie's story and her search for happiness.

Scott Thomas plays Annie with a conscious vulnerability. Despite her position as editor of a New York magazine, the suffering of her daughter and the horse are more than she can bare. It is no doubt in part due to her role as editor that she cannot stand by idly watching and waiting for Grace to heal. Annie has to do something. In researching the problem of horses and trauma, she learns about a rancher named Tom Booker (Redford) who has a different approach to helping horses. They call him a horse whisperer.

In a decision which has little reasoning and less rationale, Annie loads up Grace and Pilgrim and heads west to Montana in search of this mysterious man. When she shows up at his ranch, uninvited and unannounced, he agrees to look at her horse but refuses to make any promises. Booker is not only a study of horses, however, but also of people. He almost instinctively understands that Grace, with her injury, needs healing as much -- if not more -- than Pilgrim.

In addition to its slow start and plodding plot, The Horse Whisperer also fails in one other respect. Despite its title and its obvious connection with horses, there is no exposition to explain to the viewer what Tom is doing or how he's doing it. Instead of a scientific or even holistic approach to healing, Tom's silent stares and quiet manner suggest something more akin to Native American shamanism. As a result, there is no way for the audience to better understand horses or their relationship with people.

Even the relationships between people leave something to be desired. With the exception of one midnight kiss, the passion that Annie and Tom have for one another never ignites. It was Redford's decision to remove the sex from the book, and as a director he has that right. I applaud a director who is willing to leave something to the imagination. Nevertheless, there is absolutely no fire between Redford and Scott Thomas. It leaves the audience wondering -- for much of the movie -- if Annie's marriage is breaking up or if it's in our imaginations.

The cast is supported by two wonderful performances in small roles. Sam Neill (recently in the television mini-series "Merlin") plays Annie's husband, Robert. He shows an overwhelming amount of compassion for Annie and Grace, and lets Annie leave when she wants to head west without him. Dianne Wiest, nearly impossible to recognize with a few added pounds, plays Tom's sister-in-law, Diane. She's a fussy old rancher's wife who doesn't like strangers. Still, there are moments when her straight-forward approach is refreshing in a story so filled with people beating around the bush.

From the slow pacing of the movie to the majestic shots of Montana landscapes, it is apparent that Redford made this film as a labor of love. There are moments when the audience can almost feel his reverence for the land, taking it in, and moving with the same slow deliberation which motivates Tom Booker. For me, however, the two hours and forty-five minutes of Montana wore thin. I think a good editor could have trimmed the film down by half an hour without losing any story.

MY RATING: 4 out of 10.

RATED:
RUN TIME: 168 min.