The Rider

Description

After suffering a life-threatening head injury, rodeo competitor Brady Blackburn is told never to ride again. But his life is utterly entwined with horses; they are his passion and fuel his dreams for a better life. Director Chloé Zhao met the real-life Brady while filming Songs My Brother Taught Me (2014 SFFILM Makers grant-winner) on the Pine Ridge reservation. A Lower Brule Sioux cowboy, he is a gentle and powerfully magnetic screen presence. This fascinating hybrid film tells a version of his story with an intimate naturalism and indelible sense of place and character.

“Whether it comes down to pure lightning-in-a-bottle presence or a nurturing directorial hand — a bit of both, most likely — Jandreau is quite a find: a natural, laconic brooder, with the steady stance and gaze of a scragglier Heath Ledger. He’s up to the later emotional demands of Zhao’s script, too, a disconsolate sag to his physical swagger growing with each setback. And while the novice actors all acquit themselves well, it’d be remiss to overlook the formidable wrangling of the film’s ravishing equine ensemble, with which [Joshua James] Richards’s camera lens is often mistily besotted. Even as harder realities hit home, The Rider is in complete sympathy with its protagonist’s wild, wistful yen.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

“The connection between men and horses is one of the most enduring themes in cinema, if an increasingly abstract and nostalgic one. But Zhao’s framing of Brady’s story is unmistakably contemporary; she gets so close up that the screen practically exudes the smell of hay and sweat. It helps that her star has the best method training possible . . . When Brady tries his hand at breaking horses for a living (a considerably safer job than riding bucking ones) we’re watching Jandreau’s own intuition and physical awareness onscreen, a careful, wordless dance with a jittery colt. But there could be no mistaking The Rider for a veiled documentary: Zhao’s sense of lyricism and emotional rhythm is all her own.” – Emily Yoshida, Vulture

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