The Horse Whisperer (DVD 2001)

Considered solely on its merits as a film, this thing borders on the pathetic. The one redeeming feature is the horse's performance and the cameraman who captured it for us. That horse[es??] really worked for his hay. Watching the horse Pilgrim in this film reminds us of Lee Marvin's comment on receiving an Academy Award for Cat Ballou: "this really belongs to a horse somewhere in Nevada". While this is supposed to be a story about people, Redford as director couldn't avoid the cliché of scenes of sweeping vistas, pleasing to watch but contributing nothing to an already thin plot. This isn't a film about frontier development, it's supposed to be about a horse shrink confronted by an Eastern "modern woman." Why couldn't Redford provide some urban shots for contrast?
We must be fair to Robert Redford. Converting the worst novel of the past generation to film took courage and talent. Redford has these aplenty, but the source material inevitably undercut even his abilities. Evans' unique version of a Harlequin Romance was designed for the screen - simplistic, implausible and meritless. The only thing positive here is that Evans' characters translated into film without a hitch. Easily done since the only one with any depth is [again] the horse. Redford simply plays himself in the role Tom Booker. His opening scenes are nearly all mute, but Redford can pull that off with his piercing gaze. He personifies the laconic solitary rancher with ease. Regrettably, Evans' story forces Booker to fall for Anne MacLean, a woman with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. Neither book nor film provided a shred of motive for this bizarre romance, we are simply presented the situation in text and scene as if perfectly natural. Thomas, as MacLean, conveys the self-centred, amoral and predatory publishing executive almost flawlessly. She blithely enters the affair with no shred of conscience for her betrayed husband, Sam Neill. What is the motivation for this marital treason? Sam couldn't do his job from Montana? We never find out just what made MacLean attractive to Booker. As it turns out, that isn't important.

We come at last to the one who's supposed to be the important character, Grace, the teen-age amputee. Evans was careful not to burden the horse with manic-depressive tendencies resulting from Grace MacLean's crippling. We're left to think that being smacked by a semi was cause enough. In the event, even her handicap loses its importance. Grace has a more crippling situation to deal with, a mother whose behaviour would make a spider blush. Evans, of course, fit the story into 20th Century social norms by having Grace ultimately accept her father's cuckolding. The film reprises this seditious scenario, leaving Sam Neill the modern hapless male. [One wonders when he's going to break the weak reed parts he's been saddled with.] Annie MacLean wants the western hunk, she snares him and that's justification enough. It also turns out to be the single point of both book and film. Not much substance.