SECRETARIAT (Randall Wallace)

-

It is always fun to watch inspirational sports movies, because at the end there’s always the anticipation of a great triumph. Sports being a very vast genre, directors need to shape their film based on a chosen sport and shape it in a way that is unique from the rest of the pack.

SECRETARIAT is another entry in the horse racing sub category, preceded by Gary Ross’s SEABISCUIT and that famous Elizabeth Taylor movie debut which earned the attention of audiences worldwide. What makes SECRETARIAT work, aside from it being a true story is the captivating performances of seasoned leads John Malkovich and most specially, Diane Lane.

If you’re not a fan of horse racing (and I am not), most certainly you will not have known about the history of Secretariat the horse. I didn’t know about his winning streak and hall of fame status, and chances are most audiences share the same fate, so in order for SECRETARIAT the movie to work, the filmmakers really ought to dish up some entertaining races coupled with a backstory about the humans involved.

Diane Lane portrays Penny Chenery, whom as a kid adored horses, and is now left with a decision on what to do with her family’s horses now that her mother’s dead, and her father succumbing into depression. Refusing to bow down to failure and not taking the easy way out, Penny managed to overcome the impossible and proving everybody who doubted her and Secretariat wrong.

Secretariat the horse is a showstopper itself. The races are quite tightly-filmed, where you feel every streak of dirt, every breath of the horse, and every pulse-pounding moment, and Secretariat shines during these moments. Most of the time I felt pity for the horse because I can feel his exhaustion; but then again horse racing is a sport I have yet to understand.

What SECRETARIAT manages to triumph aside from the horse races, is the place of women in contemporary society. The film takes place in the 70s, where hippies abound, war in Vietnam is going on, and women are still struggling against gender equality. By emerging victorious at the end, Diane Lane as Penny Chenery made another impression in cinema regarding women as strong figures, equally important and capable as men, and just as determined.

Not to spoil the fun, but this is a Walt Disney family movie so this is exactly the kind of film you’d expect. I just wished that there were more scenes detailing Penny’s ordeal with her family during the times that she is hands on with Secretariat. I know her family in the end accepted that she needed to do what she did, but the story would have been more colourful if we got the grimy details. But that’s just me, and like what I said this is a Walt Disney movie.

RATING: 4/5


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn...
Read more

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitaliz...
Read more

BIGKIS (Neal Tan, 2014)

-
Image
As an advocacy film, BIGKIS (INTERTWINED) gets its message across. The state of maternal healthcare in the Philippines is downright depressing, with mothers seated on the floor of public hospitals due to shortage of beds, medical equipment and hospital staff. The baby better be gaping through the birth canal before the mother receives serious medical attention.  Such social issue has been featured countless times in local documentaries and even in a feature film (2011's BAHAY BATA), but BIGKIS pushes the envelope further by bridging a connection between mother and child by means of breastfeeding, and in doing so, promoting breastfeeding in the process.  As a drama, the film tends to squeeze too much tragedy from the downtrodden lives of its characters that a lot of the dialogue feels staged for us to feel sorry for their countless miseries. Mariel (LJ Reyes), a teenage mother deals with an unwanted pregnancy and worse, the abandonment of her baby's father (Pancho ...
Read more