Directed by Andrew Haigh
Starring – Charlie Plummer, Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny
The Plot – The film follows fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson (Plummer). He wants a home, food on the table and a high school he can attend for more than part of the year. As the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, stability is hard to find. Hoping for a new start they move to Portland, Oregon where Charley takes a summer job, with a washed-up horse trainer (Buscemi), and befriends a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete.
Rated R for adult language and brief violence
POSITIVES
– Crisp, subtle sound mixing that audibly paints with such vivid precision of the revolving environments. In addition to this, I’ve always been a fan of a voice on the phone sounding mumbled because of the noise surrounding the caller being overwhelming. ‘Lean on Pete’ masters this concept, and does so in a way that transcends movie stages and confident sound editors.
– Captures the angst of a teenager plagued by loneliness and the family life missing that noticeably shapes his demeanor. In meeting Pete, Charley finds a reflection in the thoroughbred that (Like his own circumstance) people around him have written off. Because of such, the importance of this relationship and what it does for Charley is immense.
– The importance of rating. A film with this premise could easily fall by the wayside of a cheesy 90’s kids movie like ‘Free Willy’, but the brash setting within the cruelty of this adult world, combined with Haigh’s sense of awareness in pointing out the awkwardness of this particular set-up, pave the way for an inspiring animal story for adults that we rarely get a piece of.
– The film isn’t afraid of getting its hands dirty with the question of unnecessary treatment to the horses, and because of this, it earns all of the dramatic muscle that it pulls from its dramatic material
– Plummer’s resiliency gives way to this candid coming-of-age story that packs a punch for the homeless youth walking the world. In Charlie’s soft-spoken and often times gritty demeanor, we get a grasp of the instinct of survival that stands true with his best friend beside him.
– Wide angle lens shots of the beautiful countryside surrounding these terrible people that come in and out of the narrative. This gives the cinematography great meaning in terms of setting the stage not only for Charley and Pete’s cross-country adventure, but also in stacking the odds against them in finding a place of their own. There’s something beautiful yet simplistic about the framing of one boy against the entire world.
– Some surprising choices for the soundtrack that work undoubtedly well. Selena Gomez’s “The Heart Wants What It Wants”, as well as a folk cover of “The World’s Greatest” by R Kelly are just two of the musical choices that give narrative wings to the poetic beauty instilled in these sincere sequences of reflection for Charley that accompany a moment of triumph or heartbreak.
NEGATIVES
– Very slow starting off in the first act. Setting this kind of precedent early on could alienate a majority of its audience, and I found it very difficult to get intrigued by this story until about an hour in.
– Another form of trailer manipulation that will do a lot of damage to people expecting a certain kind of film heading into it, and then being trounced by the ideal that this is anything BUT a story about a boy and his horse.
– Some surprising choices for the soundtrack that work undoubtedly well. Selena Gomez’s “The Heart Wants What It Wants”, as well as a folk cover of “The World’s Greatest” by R Kelly are just two of the musical choices that give narrative wings to the poetic beauty instilled in these sincere sequences of reflection for Charley that accompany a moment of triumph or heartbreak.
7/10