The Horse Whisperer
Encyclopedia : T : TH : THE : The Horse Whisperer
The Horse Whisperer (1998) is a Robert Redford movie based on the 1995 novel by Nicholas Evans about a talented horse trainer (Robert Redford) hired to help an injured teenager (played by Scarlett Johansson) and her horse recuperate.
Plot
Teenager Grace MacLean (Johansson) and her best friend Judith sneak out of the house early on a winter morning to ride their horses. As they cross a road, a truck appears unexpectedly and startles the horses; Judith and her horse are killed in the collision while Grace and her horse are both severely injured.Grace recovers physically, though she is permanently disabled by a leg amputation and she is psychologically scarred and lifeless. Her horse is traumatized and uncontrollable. To heal the pair, the Horse Whisperer (Redford) is hired by Grace's mother, Annie MacLean (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) who falls in love with him when she visits his Montana ranch.
Background
The main character is modeled after horse trainer Buck Brannaman, who also doubled for Robert Redford in the film and served as a consultant to Redford.The therapy administered to the traumatized horse is faithful to John Solomon Rarey's description of his own methods, although it differs in small details. On his website, Nicholas Evans posted, "I spent many weeks traveling across the West and met three amazing horsemen: Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt and Buck Brannaman." Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt would have already been elderly at that time, whereas Brannaman was still a relatively young man.
External links
- [Mixed Messages from the Movie, The Horse Whisperer] - John Lyons critiques the horse training methods it depicts
- [Buck Brannaman site]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.