by Rich Elias, May 14, 1998

• Rated PG-13
• 164 Minutes
• 3 Stars

The story opens with young Grace MacLean riding her horse Pilgrim in upstate New York. An accident leaves her a cripple (she loses half a leg) and the horse a psychotic. Pilgrim won't let anyone go near him. Grace's mother Annie decides that to heal Grace's psychic wounds, she has to heal the horse's first. She hears of a "horse whisperer" named Tom Booker out in Montana. We are told that these whisperers possess the special gift of knowing how to soothe savage horses. When Booker isn't interested in coming east to help, Annie packs Grace and Pilgrim into a Range Rover and trailer, respectively, and heads to Montana.

Booker (Redford) lives with his brother's family on a ranch. We learn his history in a few sentences: studied in Chicago, married a cellist there, she didn't like the ranch, end of story. Annie's history is less conventional, but when we meet her she's living a career cliché. Grace says she's on the phone 23 hours a day. Her husband Robert takes third place after their daughter and her career.

The screenplay by Eric Roth and Richard LaGravenese circles from horse and girl, girl and mom, mom and cowboy, cowboy and horse. All have troubled relationships. As Booker works with the horse, he works with Grace too, trying to bring out of self-pity. Montana and Booker also work on Annie. The landscape seeps into her soul; she sees how brittle and shallow her life has been.

The horse, who is at the center of all this, isn't having it easy either. The best scenes in "The Horse Whisperer" show Booker patiently working with an animal that refuses to trust anyone. Redford, the director, slows the story down for these scenes; Richardson, the director of photography, makes them worth watching. The movie becomes calm, unhurried, as if we have to live through this with Booker and Pilgrim at their own pace, not ours. At 164 minutes, "The Horse Whisperer" is a long movie. But it doesn't feel long. We slow down to watch it.

The story isn't equal to the mood set by the scenery and Booker's quiet assurance. He's a "Yup, Nope" cowboy who smiles more often than he speaks. Annie, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, waltzes in from the love triangle in "The English Patient" to another one. She and Booker fall in love. Unlike "The English Patient," though, there's not much physical passion. When sex threatens, they ride horses instead.

The movie was shot near Livingston, Montana, a western outpost for Redford and many Hollywood stars. (Trivia fact: director Sam Peckinpah died in Livingston.) Like anyone who comes to Montana from either coast, Redford thinks its endless vistas possess curative powers. The movie gets past problems in character and narrative by throwing everybody except Grace into a saddle and trotting them up a bluff overlooking God's own territory.

In the mountains, there you feel free. Redford probably took his cue from legendary director John Ford, whose cowboy epics are not only set in the west, but use its vastness as a moral force. Nature humbles man. Ford is probably also behind a key theme in "The Horse Whisperer": the uniquely American notion that a journey west is always a new beginning. Our past life falls away; we are redeemed. (Like Claire Trevor, the bar girl in "Stagecoach" whose virtues emerge mile by mile beyond Kansas City.)

Redford's love for this land, filtered through movies he also loves, gives this movie its special strengths. His gift with actors also enhances "The Horse Whisperer." The talented Kristin Scott Thomas is exceptional here, turning a cliché into a character. (Richardson's camera work softens her beaky, angular features. She seems more beautiful in the Montana light than in the fluorescent glare of her New York office. Intentional? Probably.) More exceptional is young Scarlett Johansson as Grace, who is totally convincing as a young girl on the verge of womanhood dealing with the reality that she is maimed for life. There's no phoniness in how she handles this, but there could have been. Sam Neill, as Annie's husband, adds ballast to a thankless role.

He's nice. Annie is nice. Dianne Wiest, as Tom's sister-in-law, is nice. Chris Cooper, playing Tom's brother - he's nice. Tom is nice and Grace is nice and Montana -- well, it looks nice too. "The Horse Whisperer" isn't too particular about details which nagged me. I mean, how would a New York City magazine editor go about organizing a cross-country trip with a crippled daughter and whacked out horse? Where do you get oats? Water? Where do you sleep? What do you do if the horse wakes up after midnight like a Vietnam vet in an Oliver Stone movie? Redford and Richardson rise above such questions by pulling the camera up to turn every road into a ribbon, a man-made scar on an enduring landscape. This aspect of "The Horse Whisperer" is convincing; it's more real than a plot which never comes together or the weird feeling that My Friend Flicka was somehow bitten by Old Yeller in his last days. And the feeling that Redford -- smile CUT smile CUT smile CUT -- is a holistic Marlboro Man who doesn't smoke.