Daily Blague

The other day, Ms NOLA offered the temptation of seeing The Squid and the Whale with her yesterday afternoon, but I was a good boy and decided on something showing at the Storage Unit Theatre - Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story. An unlikely choice, I know, but something about AO Scott's very favorable writeup in today's Times convinced me that I wouldn't hate it. And I didn't. I loved it. Kurt Russell, Kris Kristofferson, Elizabeth Shue, David Morse, and Luis Guzmán were every bit as good as I thought they be - Mr Russell a bit better than that, even - while the two stars whom I'd not seen before, Dakota Fanning and Freddy Rodrìguez were very pleasant surprises. Writer-director John Gatins clearly knows what he's doing, and, not incidentally, he uses the bluegrass landscape astutely.

Dreamer is being marketed as a family movie, and there were plenty of kids at the theatre, but, frankly, there was a great deal of grown-up tension between the characters, and the world of thoroughbred racing was not romanticized. The nuts and bolts were given much more articulate treatment than they were in Seabiscuit. Which is not to criticize the great Seabiscuit, but just to wonder how much of Dreamer will fly over kids' heads. Kurt Russell has always been good at playing wounded men, but here he's something more, a wounded man who decides to get over his way of getting over his wound. He takes off the bandages and resumes trying to live a full life. The pain of disappointment is always visible on his face until, eventually, it's replaced by hope and then contentment.

At the beginning of Dreamer, the Crane family lives on a horse farm with no horses. Dad is distant from his daughter Cale, and Dad's father, Pop, lives in his own house to one side, incommunicado. Dad's jockey no longer races, and he has a pronounced pot. You know that all these things will change, and at the end you are grateful that you've been spared most of the financial aspects of this transformation. The Cranes are living hand-to-mouth, but they manage, and financial hardship never occludes the horse story at the forefront.

As for the horse story, it's enough to say that a fine-looking animal that is almost put down at the beginning of the film goes on to more glorious achievement. The role is played by an animal named Sacrifice. Speaking of roles, the actress who plays the small role of Cale Crane's school teacher, Karen (I thought I saw "Kayren" on the screen) Butler really caught my eye. This is apparently her first film. I don't think that it will be her last.