Film Review: SEABISCUIT **** (out of 5)
The true story of a long shot race horse who became a cultural hero during the Great Depression, and of the people who believed in him.
A confluence of many superb talents on both sides of the camera with an archetypal American story about perseverance and courage, Seabiscuit is old-fashioned Hollywood filmmaking at its best, a wonderful movie-movie for an uneven summer season.
It would have been hard to screw it up. The saga of Seabiscuit and his people is so naturally compelling, Laura Hillenbrand’s book about them has been a continual bestseller from the moment it was published in 2001, an amazing true story frequently noted for its ability to make grown men cry (and we all know what tough nuts grown men are, huh?). Seabiscuit, the book, is such a darned good read, it’s tempting to wonder why no one has written it before now, but the story needed a teller of Hillenbrand’s vision, skill and wit before it became special.
By himself, Seabiscuit would be enough classic material for a whole novel: the runt offspring of a famed champion from a long line of ill-tempered winners, he was abused by his original owners, declared incorrigible, raced too often and then rejected. In his first four years of life he had grown from a good natured colt into a vicious, embittered soul who attacked the grooms and resisted all attempts at befriending him. This was the precise moment that Fate, always a better storyteller than mere mortals, brought him together with three unlikely saviors.
Seabiscuit’s new handlers were just as damaged by life, and at a time when the human world was suffering from a global economic crash. The owner was a self-made automobile magnate, tortured by the loss of his son in a freak accident; the jockey was a ne’er-do-well, abandoned by his family and beaten nearly senseless while trying to make ends meet in back alley prize fights; and the trainer was an itinerant cowboy, his livelihood made obsolete overnight, who had become a stone-quiet eccentric, distrusted by all but his horses. Each of these men in some way reflected Seabiscuit’s mute agonies, his ungainliness and estrangement from civilization, and they projected their hopes back onto him. Great horse that he was, Seabiscuit listened.
This mysterious symbiosis, between three people and their devoted wild beast, lies at the core of Hillenbrand’s sprawling book, and it is the one major idea that director Gary Ross extracted when he took on the daunting task of adapting Seabiscuit for the movies. No single film could have captured all of Hillenbrand’s epic, which jumps back and forth over the first thirty years of the 20th century and takes in the evolution of breeding and training practices, the horrors of being a jockey, and of being a jockey’s spouse, the meaning of Seabiscuit not only for his own time but our own, and the labyrinth of a horse’s mind, to name but a few of her topics. You could make ten good movies out of her Seabiscuit, or a sizable mini-series.
Instead, Ross does something just as difficult, creating good drama out of the unruly facts and making the human elements mesh into a continually suspenseful, bittersweet and emotionally satisfying ride. A talented multi-hyphenate whose previous films have been Capra-esque comic fantasies, often with a painful twist of reality for spice (see Pleasantville, 1998), Ross inverts his style here, recreating the 1930s in muted colors, keeping the emotional brutality of the times hanging in the air, in the sets, dialogue and performances, until it’s time for a shot of hope to make an appearance.
But anybody can follow Frank Capra’s formula of ever-worsening disasters, only relieved at the very bottom of act three, just before the fade out. Because Seabiscuit was real — he’s been called one of the greatest athletes in history, and he is unquestionably one of the fastest horses of all time — there were many peaks and valleys in his journey toward racing immortality. Ross’ surprising hat trick, both as a writer and as a director, is in his patience for letting a big story unfold at its own pace. Though he doesn’t have as much time as Hillenbrand to detail the period or the milieu of Thoroughbred racing, he gives equal screen time to all four principals before they meet, he draws in historical footnotes narrated by David McCullough, the authoritative voice of many a PBS documentary, and he has the smarts to allow his most important plot/character points to…just…sort of…sneak in.
Seabiscuit could easily have been ruined by a heavy hand, but Ross knows he has a ready-made sentimental story, full of colorful people and impressive animals, he doesn’t have to hammer every reversal into the ground. He also knows that movies are mostly composed of memorable moments, all kinds, and that the best way to insure them is by using good actors, although good camerawork never hurts. Ross brings it all to Seabiscuit, with an outstanding ensemble and some of the year’s finest cinematography.
Jeff Bridges, who always makes it look easy, is perfectly cast as the haunted optimist Charles Howard, whose money and enthusiasm brought the others together; Chris Cooper, an experienced horseman before he was an actor, plays taciturn so well that only his natural charisma keeps him from becoming as invisible as the real Tom Smith, Seabiscuit‘s trainer; and Tobey Maguire seems to be Red Pollard, the daredevil jockey who specialized in making unwanted mounts perform, and who sought personal calamity as if it relaxed him.
Although Maguire isn’t as experienced as the other two veterans, he might as well be, an understated craftsman who has become a movie star in the last year almost by default (he did choose the role that put him where he is, but not the overwhelming audience response). Maguire is obsessively drawn to playing intelligent outsiders who see through social hypocrisy, a trait he conveys more with his eyes and posture than with the things he says. In Seabiscuit, he captures Red Pollard’s melancholy and his rage with equal veracity. The moment when he must ask Bridges/Howard for a little money, radiating shame, hunger and intractable defiance all at once, is worth all the racing sequences in the film, two evenly matched professionals bringing a touch of humanity to their jobs. And there is plenty more where that came from.
Even so, the racing sequences are fabulous, not just recreating Seabiscuit’s greatest hits, but bringing a whole subculture to life in all its thunder and pageantry. Staged by a couple of champion jockeys, Seabiscuit’s racing scenes easily keep pace with the heart-pounding descriptions of Hillenbrand’s book, cinematographer John Schwartzman inventing some never-before-seen tracking shots that drop the audience down in the middle of a jostling, pounding field of half-ton giants speeding down the backstretch. From the first race Seabiscuit creates a visceral awareness of the danger to both horse and rider, and Ross makes each sequence build on the next, often telling the audience more with a well-timed cut or sound effect than he does in the dialogue (such as the breathtaking entrance he contrives for War Admiral, Seabiscuit‘s nemesis).
Not a perfect film, but a grand entertainment, rich with character and much more ambitious than your average summer roller-coaster. Seabiscuit transcends its mandate as a mere feel-good movie, delivering genuine humor and pathos along with its thrills.
William H. Macy gives masterful comic relief as an amalgam of radio announcers from the period, and the historical costume and set designs are world class, as might be expected in a film financed by DreamWorks SKG.
Seabiscuit
written & directed by Gary Ross, from book by Laura Hillenbrand; director of photography, John Schwartzman; edited by William Goldenberg ; music by Randy Newman
with: Jeff Bridges (Charles Howard), Chris Cooper (Tom Smith), Tobey Maguire (Red Pollard), William H. Macy (Tick Tock McGlaughlin)
2 hr., 20 m.; Universal, rated PG-13
release date: July 25
Notes:
ONE-OF-A-KIND: It took six different horses to portray Seabiscuit, each trained to perform specific actions on cue. But the real horse was even more of a caution than he is in the film, mercilessly taunting his competitors, pretending to be sick when he didn’t feel like waking up, and at times, running his own strategy once he’d learned the game.
SPECIAL EFFECTS: The thoroughbreds used in the racing sequences could only run full-out twice a day, and then only for a furlong or two each time (a maximum of 440 yards). So cinematographer Schwartzman built a Hummer with a special dual crane, enabling him to photograph a galloping pack from two angles at once, which doubled the useable footage that could be taken under pressure. The horses accelerated to their top speed so quickly, within three or four strides, the Hummer needed plenty of head start on them before cameras rolled.
THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT ACTING: Tobey Maguire performed some of his moments while riding a modified dummy, normally used for training jockeys, suspended above the frame of a low-slung boat trailer. The rig allowed the camera to get very close to the star while real horses chased him in the background and on the sides. At 40 miles per hour, that is. And to think some executives have questioned his ability to perform stunts.
Eric Barker is a writer and independent filmmaker living in Denver.
