The other night, I had a dilemma. Coverage of the Royal Wedding was set to start at 3am EST. I had planned on staying up through the night to watch all the coverage, but at the same time, I wanted to take a nap, knowing that I would fall asleep during the coverage if I didn't. My brother and I decided that we would watch a movie before the coverage started, and if we happened to fall asleep during it, I set an alarm for 3 to make sure we were up for the wedding. I suggested The Horse Whisperer. Looking back, I should have suggested something that I could fall asleep during and not care. I didn't end up taking a nap, and I did end up falling asleep during the wedding. But more on that later.
Quick rundown of the movie: Scarlett Johansson plays a young, teenage girl (Grace) who loves horse riding. One snowy day, she is out riding with a friend when something goes tragically wrong. Grace and her horse are badly injured and Grace goes into a deep depression. Grace's mother Annie (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) is a type-A, micromanaging mother that enlists the help of Tom Booker (Robert Redford) to heal her daughter's horse, and in a way, Grace as well. This city-girl is very much out of place in the rugged Montana landscape. However, as Annie sees Tom work his magic on the horse, she stops worrying so much about her problems (a strained marriage, being fired from her job, etc.) and begins to enjoy life.
I love this movie. It had been years since I had seen it (probably since 1998 when it first came out) and I thought about it a few months ago as I was writing a paper for my Urban Sociology class. Then when I found out Robert Redford was in it (not to mention directed it), I just had to watch it. Like a friend of mine said, "Bobby R + Horses = Perfection." If I could sum up the movie into an equation, that would be it. If you were to peel back all of my complex layers of a cosmopolitan life, at my core you would find a country girl. Some of you may be laughing right now, thinking, "Jenny getting dirty? Country Girl? She HATES country music and any place that doesn't have a Barnes and Noble." True. But growing up in SoJo requires you to have a love for a bit of country. I would love to have a care-free life up in a cabin in the mountains (as long as I could still have my TV and the occasional trip into a city for a shopping spree for clothes and books.) Although I never really got into becoming an equestrian and can count the number of times I have ridden a horse on one hand, I have always had a soft spot for horses. This movie hit that soft spot just right.
Anyways, back to the review...Scarlett Jo does a great job of playing the moodie teenager. Yes, she just went through a traumatic experience, but she still acts like a privileged brat for quite a bit of the movie. The landscape of Montana is gorgeous. The story itself is entertaining. And of course you have Robert Redford. He's quite good-looking and looks even better up on a horse. He's a great actor, and he is in his traditional role of a character sticking it to the man. (Challenge: name me a movie where RR doesn't stick it to the man.) If you can get past the rather graphic accident at the beginning of the movie, then you will enjoy it. (During the accident, my brother yelled at me, "This is horrible! Why are you making me watch this?!" Don't worry though; he ended up loving the movie.) Warning though (besides the graphic accident): It's your traditional open-ended Robert Redford ending, so don't expect to have any closure.
