The Rider: Well-Crafted, But Will Make You Sad!

This film, written and directed by Chloe Zhao, has many things going for it, but it made me very sad, so I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I would have otherwise.  The movie raises the issue of not giving up on your dreams versus accepting a horrible reality and moving on.  The film is based largely on true events, and all the movie's major characters are the actual people who are involved in this story.  Considering their lack of experience, their performances are nothing short of extraordinary. Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) is a Lakota Sioux Indian who is an up-and-comer on the rodeo circuit.  He rides bucking-broncos and bulls.  He is also a fantastic horse trainer.  One day, Brady gets tossed off a bull and suffers a serious head injury.  He needed emergency brain surgery and now has a metal plate in his head.  He has been told by his neurologist that he can't even ride a horse anymore, no less be on the rodeo circuit.  (Brady Jandreau is a great horse trainer and actually had a head injury while on the circuit.)  Unfortunately, Brady is a cowboy who loves to ride and his life is essentially meaningless without his cowboy life.  Brady has a conflictual relationship with his alcoholic and gambling-addicted father, Tim (Tim Jandreau), so he gets most of his emotional support from his younger autistic sister, Lilly (Lilly Jandreau). Brady's bull-rider friend and mentor, Lane Scott (Lane Scott), suffered an even-more-serious injury while on the circuit, and was left paralyzed and unable to speak.  Brady visits Lane a few times at a rehab center and, since they are actually close friends, the scenes are "as real as it gets," but very sad. The best scene of the film is when Brady tames a wild horse.  The scene lasts only a few minutes, but it apparently actually happened.  Chloe Zhao took about two hours of footage of the horse taming and then edited it down to a few minutes.  The scene is so amazing, the film is worth seeing just for this scene alone. The cinematography (by Joshua Jan Richards) is breathtaking.  My two "beefs" with the movie is that the pace is very slow and the characters, although well-developed, don't evolve in any significant way.  The film has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so most fans liked it better than I did.  Many critics are hailing it as the best film of 2018 so far. By the way, this is my 300th post!  If you enjoy the blog, I would appreciate you clicking on the link to the ShortNSweetMovieReviews FB page and giving it a "Like" to try to add some subscribers. https://www.facebook.com/snsmoviereviews/