Seabiscuit - A Blu -Ray Film Review
"You know, you don't throw a whole life away just 'cause he's banged up a little."
I remember the night I first saw Seabiscuit. I was 17. I had graduated from Home School High School just a couple of months before. There was a frighteningly huge thunderstorm rolling in as I entered the theater. I went to see it primarily for Tobey Maguire because I had loved him in Spider-Man the year before, Spidey being my favorite superhero, but I had no real interest in horse racing. Or any other kind of racing. I'm not a sports fan. Football I can handle alright because it's fast paced, but you still wouldn't catch me turning my TV to a game if I had any other options available for entertainment. So Seabiscuit wasn't just an underdog movie by formula, it was an underdog movie for me personally. I was not expecting it to uppercut me so. To blindside me with how powerful it was. For it is not merely a story about a great racehorse from a bygone era, but a story of three men, each battered and broken in their own ways by the cards life has dealt them, who come together with an equally broken horse to forge a weird, yet beautiful in its own way, family and how they help heal each other. It's a beautiful story told with a fiery passion and deep compassion for both its central characters, both human and animal, and through them for humanity at large. And it based on a true story that was chronicled in a book by a lady named Laura Hillenbrand.
In the early 1900s Charles Howard, played by Jeff Bridges, moves to San Francisco with his wife to start his own bicycle shop. Business does not take off and one day, when he helps a gentleman fix his Stanley Steamer, Howard is pulled into the brand new automotive industry and becomes the best salesman for automobiles on the west coast. Tom Smith is an older cowboy drifter who works with a Wild West show who happens to have a special connection with horses. Johnny "Red" Pollard, played younger by Michael Angarano and older by Tobey Maguire, is a young boy living in Canada with his well to do family who has a knack for riding horses beautifully and a love for classic literature encouraged by his dad. Three individuals whose fates are tied before any of them know it. The Depression hits. Johnny's family is reduced to the slums. When his father discovers that Johnny has made some money working at a nearby stable he decides that he has to leave his son in the care of the stable's owner who has a "real house" and so Johnny is left without his family and grows into an angry young man who tries to work as a jockey by day, but moonlights in illegal boxing matches, the blows from which eventually leave him blind in his right eye. At the same time Howard has lost a good deal of his business and had to lay many employees off, which he is none too happy about, but even more tragedy is headed his way when his young son Frankie dies in a horrific car accident. When his wife leaves him he eventually finds his way, simultaneously with Johnny and Smith, to the border town of Tijuana where gambling and alcohol are both legal and in endless supply. While there to obtain a "quickie divorce" he meets Marcela Zabala, played by the gorgeous Elizabeth Banks, and strikes up a new romance that finds them getting married soon after. He takes up an interest in horse racing at the same time and goes to Smith to seek his help as a trainer. Smith agrees. Back in the States, Smith helps Howard pick a smaller horse who bears the title moniker because of the animal's "spirit". Seabiscuit is an angry horse and when Smith catches sight of Johnny, now dubbed Red, fighting angrily with a group of stablehands he notices how the two match each other. And so Johnny "Red" becomes Seabiscuit's jockey despite being bigger than the standard jockey is supposed to be. Now that the three broken men and the equally broken horse have finally come together they will all learn more about themselves, and each other, than they ever thought possible and out of the fires of adversity and heartbreak a new and more powerful family is born.
The above synopsis may sound "trite", but let me assure you that this is one film that takes a "formula story" and works it so passionately and with such consummate skill and artistry that it transcends that formula to become something so much more powerful and lastingly meaningful. Sure, there may be a few liberties and licenses taken with events and characters in order to streamline the narrative to fit the cinematic format, but none of them take away from the credibility of the events depicted, or much more importantly the central beating heart of the story. The performances from every cast member are outstanding across the board. Jeff Bridges is perfect as Charles Howard. His early optimism for "the future" and his love for his work and his family segueing into the depression of a man who loses two of the most valuable things in his life and then into the renewed vigor of a man with a new purpose and family to fight for. Bridges is masterful and never hits a false note. Tobey Maguire could not have made a more complete 180 from his Peter Parker persona. Leaner and most definitely meaner, his Johnny "Red" Pollard is an always lit fuse full to bursting with seething anger and resentment for a family who, despite their good intentions, essentially abandoned him to never be seen or heard from again, but Maguire never lets us forget that outward ferocity masks a heart that is wounded and bleeding and in desperate need of healing. His scenes with the title horse are beautifully written and performed as the two angry individuals grow closer to one another and form an inseparable bond. Chris Cooper is a quiet and thoughtful standout as Tom Smith, playing a man with a seemingly simple intellect, but a ton of common sense and a heart full of compassion for the majestic animals he helps train as well as people, Cooper nails every scene he has and shares fantastic chemistry with Bridges and Maguire. Elizabeth Banks plays Howard's second wife Marcela Zabala and while she may not have as much time on the screen as her costars she still makes the utmost of what she has and delivers a warm and ingratiating presence when she is around. Her love for Howard forged when she first sees him in Tijuana and recognizes the deep pain of a man who has lost everything that matters and her more maternal relationship with Red are beautifully played and Banks hits every note just right. Gary Stevens plays a friend and fellow jockey of Red's named George Woolf and he is also a warm presence when around. His final scene with Maguire is one that made me cry even now over a decade after first seeing the film. William H. Macy turns up in a smaller supporting role as a motor mouthed radio announcer named "Tick Tock" McLaughlin and he is always a hoot when he appears.
The performances are aces, but the film is also no less a technical treat. The production design by Jeanine Oppewall and cinematography by John Schwartzman perfectly convey the setting of the film's era from the 1910 to the 30s. The racing sequences are also wonderfully filmed, but never flashy for flashy's sake and they are always there to provide another opportunity for the growth and development of the central players. The editing by William Goldenberg is tight and fluid, keeping the story moving forward at a nice and steady pace that never drags, but also doesn't get too fast to allow the story and characters to breathe. What visual effects are there are of the "invisible" variety and used solely to aid in the depiction of the story's bygone era, never calling any undue attention to themselves. The score by Randy Newman is pitch perfect and and soars to all of the appropriately triumphant heights when needed while also never feeling like just cheap manipulation. And over all of these things is the expert and assured screenwriting and direction of Gary Ross, who distills Laura Hillenbrand's biographic novel into a tight and focused screenplay that, as mentioned above, has to take a few liberties with events and timelines to make for a more streamlined film experience, but never dishonors the story being told.
Seabiscuit is another crowd pleasing masterpiece. And once more I say that it is no bad thing to be crowd pleasing when it is pulled off with this much skill and heart. An underdog story that is so much more than just an underdog story and a sports movie where the sport actually plays second fiddle to the broader dramatic reach of the story, Seabiscuit is one of my favorite films of all time. It's a formula film that transcends the formula to become something truly special and wonderful.
5/5
Eric Spearman 1/12/2016
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