Secretariat

It is interesting how where you see a film and who you see it with can impact your movie-going experience. When I saw Secretariat it was in a small local theatre located in the middle of an urban mall. I went with my best friend who is a horse lover and there were only about 30 people in the theatre, and this was on a Saturday night. I was surprised by the low attendance, but there was one woman in our row that was enthusiastic enough for all of us. She clapped, cheered, shouted out encouragement; I was beginning to think that she had a wager on the race. It was almost like she was a Disney employee or perhaps a Secretariat shareholder. Her reactions to the film were over the top, which made me wonder why mine were so lackluster. It really was an strange experience.
 
I personally love horses and I enjoy a good horse racing film. My favorite is The Reivers with Steve McQueen. I also appreciated Universal’s Seabiscuit, but there was something flat and unmoving for me in this film. I found Secretariat a little too sanitized and simple which made me feel like I was missing out. The woman in my row was having a great time. Why was this film not working for me?
 
Diane Lane (Nights in Rodanthe) plays Penny Chenery, the daughter of a Virginian horse breeder. When her mother dies and her father starts having health issues Penny leaves her Colorado home in order to save the family farm. This action is unusual for a housewife in the 70’s, which is one reason why I had trouble with this film. It never explains how she juggled her responsibilities in a realistic way. It shows her missing a daughter’s play and how exhausted she was trying to do housework after hours of doing books. But it glosses over the real drama. I’m sure her husband gave her a much harder time than it shows on the screen, and the bit about her being a woman in a man’s field is true, but it has been done before. It is just not that typical.
 
Diane Lane tries really hard to give Penny gravitas and verve, but for me it came off too easily and pat. It takes more than a song on the radio or some encouraging words to solve life’s problems. And if your biggest obstacle in life is whether or not to sell a horse worth 8 million dollars, well that’s not a problem most of us will face. Penny had the choice of selling the horses, paying off the debts and returning to her husband and family. But instead she chose to hang on to a dream and see it through to the end. The stakes were not life or death, it was whether this horse could be proven to be a winner. A failure was not the end of the world.

My friend the horse lover liked the movie but then he is a guy. He is not as sensitive as I am to the way women are portrayed in film. This story is just as much about Penny as it is about the horse, yet the script did not do her justice. It was way too shallow and two-dimensional. This film could have been so much more.

John Malkovich (Con Air) plays a horse trainer who is coaxed out of retirement to bring Secretariat to victory. Unlike other horse movies, I never understood what his special skills were. In The Reivers the horse trainer learned that the horse loved sardines and used this secret to get the horse to run. And in Seabiscuit the trainer was a gentle soul with the ability to repair a broken body as well as a broken spirit. But what did Lucien Lauren bring? I’m sure in real life he was quite the trainer, but as John Malkovich played him he was just a flashy dresser who liked to cuss in French. I never understood what he brought to the equation.

Secretariat is not a bad film. I did find it entertaining. But I seem to be hard on movies that disappoint me. Secretariat is a family film and would be great to see at home with the kids. But to pay full price at the theatre is a little too much. I like my movies with more depth and I found this Secretariat seriously wanting.

Rating: Bargain Matinee Great family film for the kiddies