Seabiscuit: A Review of the Movie

I didn't see this film when it came out about 4 1/2 years ago, and because it had garnered so much recognition in 2003 (nominations for several impressive awards, including best picture), I was anxious to see it. Yet it is a curious and disappointing movie, though its purpose is to tell the story of the surprising and exhilarating rise of Seabiscuit to horse-racing fame in 1937-38. The film is obviously self-conscious, too self-conscious, as it tries to promote its "epic" character (through the narration of historian David McCullough and frequent black and white cut-aways to scenes from America during the Great Depression), yet it falls flat in character portrayal, building of tension and even in telling a convincing story. To make things worse, one of the major analogies the film wants to draw, between the rejected and unruly horse who eventually triumphs and the rejected and injured jockey who finally rides to victory, is so obvious and crystalline that it is as if the director is saying to us, "You sure you got the point, you dull viewers?" Well, with this negative appraisal you may well ask if the film is beyond redemption--an ironic question since the film presents the upbeat story of a horse/jockey who formerly were beyond redemption but eventually triumphed--and I believe it may well be. Let's see the story unfold.

The Troika Of Injured Characters

We don't meet the horse Seabiscuit until 40 minutes into the film. In that time the movie presents individual stories of the three major characters who will later meet. This "James Michener-style" presentation is very hard to do well, since it has to present compelling individual narratives as well give enough hints as to how the dots will eventually connect to keep the viewers' interest. What director Gary Ross tries to do is to show how each of the three leading characters, the CA automobile magnate Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), the maverick horse trainer Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) and the jockey/boxer Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire) suffers significant loss in his life. Howard has lost his son in an automobile accident, Smith is seemingly a washed-up trainer and Pollard was abandoned by his family in the economic straits of the Great Depression. The goal of a good director in this important section of the movie is to create empathy for his characters, but this is precisely what he is unable to do. While we do have some sympathy for Red's plight, we are not brought into Howard's struggles, nor does the reclusive Smith much appeal to us. Thus, director Ross has lost his chance both to create "deep" characters as well as to bring us into the story.

The Action Picks Up

When the film turns to the point of it all, the redemption and ineluctable rise to stardom of Seabiscuit, it does so with uncertain gait. On the one hand, we are touched by Howard's homespun philosophy and Red's determination but, on the other, we are talked down to by a director who so obviously wants to show comparisons between Red and Seabiscuit that the film spends inordinate time showing unruliness of both, and then taming of both. Then, just when we are delivered from the excessive analogy-seeking, we come to the "big race" on November 1, 1938 between Seabiscuit and War Admiral and we are presented with a simplified and moralistic opposition. This time is is fat-cat, arrogant, New York owner of War Admiral, who insists on his way if the horses are to run against each other and the aw-shucks, ambitious Californian Howard, whose homespun manner and seemingly naive optimism are supposed to endear us to him. And, of course, we know who is going to win the race. We knew it even before we met Seabiscuit at the 40 minute mark of the movie. There really is no drama, even if the bit of advice given the jockey by Smith (to let Seabiscuit see the eyes of War Admiral about halfway through the race) is moving.

Conclusion

The film doesn't end with the Nov. 1, 1938 victory of Seabiscuit over War Admiral. Red was unable to ride Seabiscuit because of a accident that Ross isn't really skillful enough to clarify for us (was it a result of Red's being deceived by an old acquaintance who was on the take, paid for by War Admiral's owner or was it simply an accident?), but after the big race, Seabiscuit suffered a ruptured supsensory ligament in his lower leg so that both Seabiscuit and Red are nursed back to health at the same time. Neither is expected to race again. Director Ross returns to his overwrought comparison again, as both nurse their lower legs together, limping in harmony. But we get a victory for both before the film limps to its conclusion.

Though the Nov. 1, 1938 race was billed as the "race of the century" and one of the biggest events of the year, it may, as it turns out, not even have been the biggest event of the week. For, don't you recall, Orson Wells, on Oct. 30, 1938, did his War of the Worlds dramatization, that set the East Coast on edge on Halloween Day, October 31, 1938? After that scare, the Nov. 1 race was tame by comparison..

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