Almost Perfect Film!

Rating: 8/10 (10 May 2008)

I never thought that I would care about a movie about horse-racing. I saw this film by chance and I thought it was incredibly first rate and worthy of the Oscar nominations. Tobey McGuire is brilliant as is Jeff Bridges, the millionaire who loses his son in a car accident and his wife played by Valerie Mahoff in a divorce shortly later. The story about Seabiscuit is based on the true story about how America suffered through the Great Depression after the roaring 1920s. The film's art direction, costumes, and scenery is first rate. The narration by the wonderful David McCullough is somewhat appropriate but at times I felt that I was watching a documentary about the great depression which intrigued me more than the subject of horse-racing and how America survived the great depression. Tobey's character is an equestrian from a family who lost everything in the great depression. Before he would read Charles Dickens' classics with his parents and siblings at the dinner table, after the crash is where his parents made the ultimate sacrifice in leaving him with a man who owned a home and horse-racing.