A heart-warming, living experience
By Ervell E. Menezes

IN keeping with Robert Redford’s reputation as a director, The Horse Whisperer is a brilliantly crafted and sensitively produced film about man and horses and the fragile but at times noble relationship between the two. But it is also about love and human relationships and paints a graphic picture of the contemporary mythical American West and the strong folks who still inhabit it.

Now, I’ve followed Robert Redford’s career for over three decades, since his Barefoot in the Park days with Jane Fonda and that brilliant Sydney Pollack film This Property Is Condemned and he always showed signs of promise. Later he grew from strength to strength and was also choosy about the parts he picked. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting were among his remarkable films and in both of them he co-starred with Blue Eyes Paul Newman. And good though Redford was as an actor it was as a director that he impressed most. His debut film Ordinary People won the Best Picture Oscar.

This was followed by others, The Milagro Beanfield War and The River Runs Through It. I haven’t seen his The Quiz Show yet but the fact remains that he chooses his subjects carefully and since he makes few films they are well researched. Having a ranch in Montana (where his Sundance Institute is located) he is best qualified to tackle a subject like The Horse Whisperer and boy does he do a great job?

Nearly three hours long it is not a minute too long. At the outset there is a quote about the man-horse relationship. Of how man killed the horse for its flesh and how this distrust grew. But there were men who understood the animal and were able to talk to them, understand them and even cure their various ailments. These men were called horse whisperers.

Tom Booker (Robert Redford) is one of them. Living on his ranch with his brother and his family he is contacted by magazine editor Annie MacLean (Kristen Scott Thomas) after her daughter Grace (Scarlett Johansson) meets with a tragic accident (while falling off her horse Pilgrim) in which she broke her leg. But Tom refuses to go to New York. Instead, Annie, Grace and the wounded horse Pilgrim drive to Montana. What ensues is a poetic account of the "Wild West" as it still exists with the horse and Tom as the focal point. Later, and not unexpectedly, love steps in.

"Tom Booker is a contemporary mythic western character. He’s a man of few words, with a calm assuredness about everything he does," says producer Patrick Markey about the lead character. "I think that people want to believe that a man like Tom Booker exists in the world. I think in our culture, we’ve lost most of our heroes. Our mythology is getting away from us," says Redford about the character he plays. It is also the first time Redford has acted in a film he has directed.

"For me personally, the most important things in approaching a film are having a good story, and having one that is character-driven, rather than being driven by technology or effects or by outer forces," says Redford. The inference is obvious. Spielberg, Lucas and company, are you listening?

Beautifully shot by cinematographer Robert Richardson, The Horse Whisperer is an absorbing drama of life in the West. It is about rustic wisdom as opposed to urban insolence. Tom Booker is pitted against a city editor Annie, one used to getting her own way. Slowly but ever so surely the chemistry works and love blossoms. But the subject is treated with kid gloves and it is therefore so jolting. Restraint is the watchword.

What’s more, there are a whole lot of very talented performers to put it across. Sam Neil plays Annie’s husband Robert and his bonding with his daughter Grace is perfect. Not unexpectdly, the mother-daughter relationship is strained and the trauma of the accident doesn’t improve it. But Scarlett Johansson is amazingly mature for a youngster and goes through the emotional moments with flying colours. Redford is his usual restrained self and as for Kristen Scott Thomas, I’ve always felt she is a great actress. She was in Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient, Bitter Moon and a host of other films in which she has displayed both her versatility and professionalism. In this film she is no different. The transformation from tantrum-throwing city editor to an understanding, playing-second-fiddle woman in love has to be seen to be believed.

Then there is Tom’s brother Frank (Chris Cooper) and his wife Diane (Dianne Wiest) who are symbols of the West and the tough life they live. Simple, honest folk fired by the necessities of life and with a culture not corrupted by commercialism. The horse whispering is dealt with so endearingly that even the long footage devoted to it is at no time slow or uninteresting. In that we see the skill of the filmmaker.

But more than anything else, The Horse Whisperer is a film about that part of America which is almost forgotten. As for human relationships they are the same the world over and hence one is able to appreciate the deep involvement and understanding that exists between the diverse characters. The screenplay by Eric Roth and Richard La Gravenesse is deeply moving and there are some lines pregnant with meaning. Like Redford’s other films, The Horse Whisperer is not just an entertainer. It is a virtual living experience, informative, elevating and heart-warming.

After seeing a film like that one should keep fallow for a while so that one can savour its memory for a while. But just before that I saw Big Daddy and one cannot speak of that film in the same breath. Firstly the subject is too trite. That a man has to adopt a child to prove his sense of responsibility to his girl-friend. Sonny Koufax (Adam Sandler) is the guy in question. What’s more, the child Julian is the son of his former room-mate. The antics of the child are amusing, but the story seems to fall between two stools. That the film sets out to correct strict, demanding fathers is praiseworthy. But the manner in which it does so leaves much to be desired. And no, Adam Sandler is not my type of a comedian.