"Secretariat" is definitely the best movie about a horse I've ever seen. Better than "Seabiscuit", better than...um...well, I think "Seabiscuit" is the only other horse movie I've seen.Disney did a great job with this story. From what I can tell, they did take some liberty with the timing of events, but it appears they were very true to the actual horse racing. In 1973, Secretariat won the Triple Crown of Horse Racing, setting track records at the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, and a disputed track record at the Preakness. Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths...and Disney did an excellent job with this race, especially with the reaction of the rival trainer. Disney seems to have the "sports" movie genre nailed.
Diane Lane portrays Penny Chenery, who took over her father's horse farm due to his illness and her mom's death. Against pressures from her brother and husband, she continues to run the farm, based on the hope of this big red horse on her farm. In the movie, Secretariat was her only "big-time" horse. As it turned out when I did research on Wikipedia, there was another great horse at the farm too. Anyway, what I struggled with is the fact that Chenery sorta left her family to run this farm. As a mom with 4 children, I thought Disney sort of glossed over how hard this would have been on the family. Some of the reading I've done states that it was much harder on the family than Disney showed.
Because I had a hard time with the story of a woman sort of leaving her family, I knocked this down to a 4.5 star movie. It's still a great movie, but I just struggled with that part of the story. As a movie, it's really a 5 star show, and maybe I should have rated it that way since it was based on true events. I don't know...do with this review what you will.
No comments:
Post a Comment