Loved it, sue me

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2003)

I grew up riding. I had a horse, a former pacer named Harvey Patch who had retired from racing. I was raised reading Marguerite Henry's "Misty of Chincoteague" books. There wasn't a book about a horse I hadn't read to the point of memorization by the time I was ten. I regularly go to the track. I went on vacation to Assateague and Chincoteague Island a few years ago. Oh, and I know film, and am the most cynical and jaded person I know about it.
Yes, I loved the film.
It isn't without its flaws. Hillenbrand's book, frankly, left me wondering what all the fuss was about. Many superb and even superior books about horses and racing have been written before, and as I read the book a year ago, I found myself trying to understand what it was that made people so excited about it. What I realized was, it was made to be a movie. People smelled advertising campaigns and box office dollars when they read the book. It practically screams "crowd-pleaser!", and we know how much marketing executives love to be able to use that in a capsule review on a poster. Personally, the idea of seeing a crowd-pleasing movie always makes me want to stay away, but that's another story.
In any case, that's what's wrong with the movie. It's so in love with the organic, inherent, movie-perfect drama of the reality, it can't leave it alone to speak for itself. Instead, this truly magical little fable is drenched in gorgeous technicolor...Seabiscuit thunders past sumptuous shots of the northern California autumnal leaves, we luxuriate in the rainbow of the vibrant silks the jockeys wear--heck, even the ham and peas Maguire's Red Pollard eats one evening for dinner are as glowing and rich as rubies and emeralds, photographed as only Gary Ross ("Pleasantville") can compose a shot, saturated with well-composed period images, and the whole box of Crayolas is topped off with a warm, rich voice-over narration that is one step removed from a Ken Burns film. After all the hard work of everyone to make this the definitive movie about the triumph of the little guy, at the end of the day, it's a Ron Howard film. You're guided, step by step, from feeling to feeling, without having any say in the matter.
I love melodrama and I love Hollywood epic films, and I love movies with Jeff Bridges, and by God, I love horses. I loved this movie in spite of itself. For a movie with the central message of having faith in the little guy, though, ultimately, the message of "Seabiscuit" is that Hollywood has no faith in us responding to a movie on its own terms; instead, draping this in every manipulative technique there is, and pounding us over the head with them.