A movie that takes the biscuit

Rating: Null/10 (21 November 2003)

I don't normally enjoy sports movies and I have no interest in horseracing, but you'd have to be emotionally stunted not to be engaged by this old-fashioned, uplifting tale of a small, ungainly racehorse which galvanised 1930s America at a time of deep Depression. The account has been told before on film in 1949 with "The Story Of Seabiscuit", but it is Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling book that has led to this big budget treatment from writer and director Gary Ross.
What lifts the film above most sports-orientated films is the social and political context that it provides, reminding us of the grinding poverty that followed the Wall Street Crash with one in four Americans out of work. The familiar narrative tones of historian David McCullough, the use of contemporary photographs, and the excellent costuming and sets give the movie something of the feel of a documentary. In a a very real sense, Seabiscuit's unlikely success was a metaphor for the hope that still burned in every little man's heart.
The seal on the work's success is its uniformly fine acting, especially from those portraying the three men who were as much healed by Seabiscuit as the horse himself was nursed by them. Jeff Bridges, as the millionaire owner Charles Howard, fits the role like a glove; Chris Cooper, fresh from his success on "Adaptation", gives another carefully measured performance as the unconventional trainer Tom Smith; while Tobey Maguire - who worked with the director on "Pleasantville" - is much better cast here than in "Spiderman" as the jockey Red Pollard. If one needed more, then a cameo appearance from William H Macey (another veteran of "Pleasantville") is superb as a manic-mannered radio commentator.