History of the depression era through a racehorse story---

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 2003)

---Seabiscuit is a horse for the broken, downtrodden people of the 1930's to give them a champion to root for. He overcame abuse to become the great horse of the era, and in the process, gave a jockey his last great chance, his trainer his only great champion and his owner a way to overcome his great sorrow at the death of his only son.
A great story has been lovingly made into a very good film with some fine performances. For older people, it is the one film of the 2003 summer season we can relate too and enjoy. No cussin', no embarressing unnessessary nudity and sex, and only fisticuffs in context of the poor jockies engaging in boxing matches for a little money.

The beauty of the cinematography, especially the scenes of fall while jocky (Tobey Maguire) and Seabiscuit are recovering from injuries on the farm of the owner (Jeff Bridges) are just gorgeous.
The recreation of the 1930's era homes and clothes and especially the showing of the radio sportscasting with William H Macy as "Tick-tock". It shows him getting the actual race results off the wire and then doing all the sound effects as he does the live broadcast. This is how baseball and almost all sports were done back then. The guys were rarely at the events they were doing but they made you think they were and made it all very exciting for those at home listening in. And that is how the film shows people, sitting around their big radios at home, or crowds of men listening on car radios parked on dirt farm yards.
My two daughters and I just had a great, laughing, lump in the throat, good time at the movies. And that's what it's all about. 10/10