The Rider

A silent, serene & subdued portrait of small-town life in the American heartland, The Rider is a gently crafted, elegantly narrated & sincerely acted contemporary western drama that's heartfelt in its storytelling, authentic in its execution, and makes for one fascinating character study of a rodeo who grapples with his identity after suffering a near-fatal injury.

Written & directed by Chloé Zhao, the story is more or less a dramatisation of a real-life incident and even employs the same people in lead roles whose lives it attempts to render on screen. Enriching the imagery some more is the exquisite photography & unhurried approach, not to mention the care & understanding Zhao exhibits while sketching these characters on paper & film.

Zhao shows ample empathy for her characters, depicts the tender moments with a deft touch, and creates a comfortable enough environment for the untrained actors to give their best shot. The actors here are merely playing a fictionalised version of themselves, and they all end up doing a pretty neat job at it, for their performances are honest, arresting & emotionally resonant from start to finish.

Overall, The Rider is a tragic, soulful & poignant story of what it means to lose one's lifelong dream, the inadequacy that fills the life in its absence, and the unfathomable hardship of making peace with oneself by letting it go. There isn't really much wrong with anything Zhao does here yet for some reason, the film never immersed me into its world or made me care as deeply about the characters as Zhao does. I just like it fine.

Partly an elegy for a dissipating way of life, partly an examination of the self-destructive components of contemporary masculinity, and partly a deconstruction of the iconography of the American frontier, The Rider is the second film from Chinese-American writer/director Chloé Zhao, and is intimately tied to her debut, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015). Set in the same location in South Dakota, featuring the same milieu, and covering some of the same thematic ground, The Rider also owes a more practical debt to Songs. When she was researching that film, Zhao met rodeo rider Brady Jandreau, who taught her how to ride a horse. Promising him she would cast him in one of her subsequent films, Zhao soon learned that Jandreau had sustained a serious cranial injury in a rodeo accident, and been told by doctors that he must give up the only way of life he had ever known, as another blow to the head could kill him. Inspired by his story, Zhao wrote The Rider, a loosely fictionalised version of Jandreau's experiences, in which she cast entirely non-professional actors, including the real Jandreau, his father, sister, and several of his friends, all playing versions of themselves. The result is a kind of semi-fictional docudrama, and one of the finest films of the year.

Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) lives just above the poverty line with his father Wayne (Tim Jandreau) and his sister Lilly (Lilly Jandreau), who suffers from autism. Several months previously, Brady suffered a near-fatal head injury after falling from a bronco, which has left him with neurological damage. Warned by doctors that if he attempts to ride again, a single innocuous fall could kill him, Brady finds his very sense of self challenged as he attempts to function in a society where every man lives by the maxim of "ride or die".

In depicting Brady's struggle with his new life, Zhao is able to simultaneously romanticise and demythologise the role of the cowboy in the contemporary United States. As the story progresses, the film comes more and more to express a sense of disillusionment with the lifestyle. Part of this is the theme of the rodeo itself. So eloquently panegyrised in the early parts of the film, it is also presented as leading to physical ruin and mental anguish. Indeed, one of the film's primary motifs is that of injuries sustained whilst riding. In relation to this, it's extremely telling that literally every male Brady meets, from young boys to elderly men, all express their desire that he start riding again, although many of them know why he stopped. On the other hand, one of the few female characters tells him, "problem with you boys, you don't like to get your pride hurt". Brady and his friends are personifications of the ruggedness of the American West, and the film uses them to facilitate a deconstruction of the notions of contemporary masculinity.

They see themselves as modern day-cowboys, but the film argues this is an era where cowboys serve no function. But this is the only life they have known, and whilst the film leaves the audience in little doubt that this lifestyle can lead to ruin, so too does it ensure the viewer knows that Zhao has the deepest respect for these guys, depicting, as it does, the kind of desperation and limited choices that leave a young man with only one route, a route which often overrides any common sense he may have. Never once does it feel like Zhao is looking down on or satirising them. Rather, it's criticising the situation in which they find themselves; forced to live a life of bluster and posturing.

The most telling example of this is Lane (Lane Scott). As with the real-life Brady, Lane was a celebrated rodeo with a reputation for riding broncos no one else would touch. The embodiment of machismo with a devil-may-care attitude, he was adored by women and envied by men. However, as in the film, the real Lane is now almost completely paralysed, capable of communicating only by signing with his left hand, and living permanently in a care facility. The only difference between the real-life Lane and his fictional counterpart is that in reality, he was paralysed in a car crash, whereas in the film it was via riding. This differentiation is telling as it speaks to Zhao's thematic intent. However, as with the other riders, Lane is presented with a great deal of reverence, and never does it feel like the film is saying, "look at what the rodeo did to this guy; he must be a total idiot."

In a sense, whilst the film partially recalls The Misfits (1961), its real thematic precursor is The Wrestler (2008), an examination of male pride working against common sense, of professional dedication, of machoism gone awry. As with The Wrestler, the story of The Rider is archetypal. The Wrestler was about wrestling, but it could have been about any sport, and The Rider is even more universal. Yes, it too could have been about any sport, but it could also have been about literally any environ in which a young male tries to balance the dangers of what he does with the possibility of some kind of reward (whether financial or spiritual) at the end of it all.

Looking at things aesthetically, the film opens with a shot of a horse during a storm, followed by loud thunder. The immediate impression is one of almost elemental forces - two extremes of nature coming together. This is immediately contrasted with Brady waking up and heading into his dingy bathroom to pluck off the staples holding the bandage on his still raw head wound. Thus, in just two shots, Zhao sets up the entire theme of the film - poetic rhetoric and romantic myths are all very well and good, but day to day mundanity can so often get in the way.

Elsewhere, the centrepiece of the film, and probably the most beautiful sequence, is when Brady decides the only opportunity of which he can avail to allow him to stay around horses without risking his life is to break in young broncos. The single-take shot where he breaks in an "untrainable" horse is searingly beautiful in its simplicity and elegance. The lack of edits gives it an unmanipulated emotional sense, whilst also meaning there can be no cheating - we're really watching Brady Jandreau break in a stubborn horse. The gentle approach he employs, the constant reassurances to the animal, the way he holds the rope, how he gets the horse used to someone on its back without actually getting all the up, his grace and intuition, his confidence; the totality is, simply put, achingly perfect. What we are seeing obviously comes from a deep natural inclination in the real-life Brady. You can't teach this kind of brilliance, no matter what the discipline is. Indeed, his gentle approach itself is completely at variance with such scenes in other westerns, where we're usually shown someone breaking in a horse by forcing it to respect them, and that in itself speaks as much to Zhao's theme as anything else. It's this sense of docudrama/realism/naturalism, whatever you want to call it, that really makes The Rider stand out.

If I had one criticism, it would be that the film runs out of momentum a little in the third quarter, although it picks up again in the last 20 minutes or so. However, aside from that, I literally cannot find a bad thing to say.

Bleak but incredibly beautiful, honest, but deeply respectful, realistic but profoundly poetic, Zhao's depiction of a dying culture, a dying breed, a dying way of life - the adrenaline-junkie bronco riders, America's modern cowboys - is easily one of the finest films of the year. And how ironic is it that one of the best examinations of American masculinity that you're likely to see in a long time is written and directed by a woman? And a woman born in China to boot. That's sure to irritate the misogynists/xenophobes no end!

While watching the end credits of this film, I noticed that Brady Jandreau is mentioned twice: as the lead actor, and as the horse trainer. It's a way of telling the audience that Jandreau is, in fact, playing himself, or at least a version of his personality.

Brady Jandreau - only his last name is changed for his movie role - is a rodeo rider who is recovering from a near-fatal head injury. Doctors tell him he should never ride again, but after having spent some weeks working in a supermarket, he comes to the conclusion that there's only one thing that makes him happy: riding rodeo's.

It's a simple story, but it is told with lots of empathy for the heart wrenching choices Brady has to make. We can see him wrestling with his fate and in the end, he knows that he is meant to ride horses, 'just as a horse is meant to run across the prairie'.

There are several side stories deepening the insight in Brady's predicament. His teenage sister is mentally challenged, the family is poor and lives in a trailer, and he has to say goodbye to two of his favorite horses.

The film can be interpreted as a heroic tale of perserverence and dedication. Brady lives for the rodeo, and the viewer understands why he gets a kick out of the horses, the clothing, the masculinity and the competition. The director indicates this in subtle scenes. For example when he decides to pawn his custom made saddle, because he needs the money. At the last moment, he changes his mind.

But you can also interpret this film a a sad story of a man who has only limited possibilities in life because of the environment he grows up in. Brady really has nothing else in his life, and is not capable of even imagining changing it. One of the saddest scenes in the film is when Brady visits another rodeo hero, who is paralyzed for life after a fall, and lives in a care facility. Helped by three assistants, Brady lifts his friend on a wooden horse, puts a cowboy hat on his head and makes him move as if he is riding a horse. Even this terrible example doesn't deter Brady from continuing rodeo riding.

The cinematograpy is beautiful, with plenty of shots showing the treeless prairies of the empty American heartland in all its beauty. It also gives a nice insight into the rodeo world, a cultural phenomenon as essential to the American West as bull fighting is to Spain. But it's essentially a film about a man fighting the odds to do what he wants to do.

What a magnificent film. It's a simple story, one that has been told before, but the execution has almost never been better. It has a lot in common with The Wrestler, but it's way less flawed than that. Visually the film is incredibly beautiful, with some amazing shots and really accomplished editing. As strong as the screenplay is, it's the acting and directing that make this as powerful as it is. I had an actual visceral reaction to it in a way I rarely do to any type of film. The portrayal of the disintegration of body and the sacrifices people take to accomplish these dreams was captured in such a raw, painfully realistic way. Consideing the background of the people who act in the film, it's not a surprise. In particular, Brady Jandreau is a true revelation. There's a profound sadness that he is able to capture in the close-ups of his face. The camera is able to capture so much of his nuances and every little reaction to the comments said by others hits deep. In line with the entire film, it's hard to see this as an "acting" performance because everything feels so genuine.

There have been many great films this year but this now stands as easily the best so far.

I was infatuated back in 1971/72 with Hollywood' brief but productive dalliance with the Rodeo film genre, of which Steve Ihnat's "The Honkers" was my favorite alongside the far-better publicized "Junior Bonner", "When the Legends Die" (the closest one to "The Rider") and "J.W. Coop". Chinese director Chloe Zhao takes a neo-Realist stab at the format with this affecting, strong and experimental film.

Unlike Clint Eastwood's unsuccessful recent film where he had the American heroes of the French railway terrorist incident play themselves on screen, Chloe has recruited real-life Native Americans from the South Dakota rodeo milieu to play fictional characters close enough to their real-life personae to establish an immediate and realistic connection. Rodeo has long been a metaphor for Western movie themes, especially those end of an era notions favored by Western masters Sam Peckinpah and John Ford, and here Zhao takes the concept one step further by having these modern day cowboys personified by Native Americans of the Lakota tribe whose culture was effectively destroyed by us "Americans", including the cowboys of old.

The central protagonist Brady has a face and utterly stoic demeanor the camera loves - a Bronson figure who happens to have the handsome features of a Channing Tatum, but never hitting a false note. His dilemma recalls the Greek myth of Sysiphus, rolling that boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down endlessly, accomplishing nothing. But the difference here is that although he cannot recover from the rodeo accident which renders him unfit to ride anymore (actually, in real-life Brady was injured in a car accident, not from rodeo performance) he is presented as a brilliant horse whisperer, adding great depth and panache to the movie.

His best friend Lance, crippled from rodeo, offers the moving sentimentality that Chloe otherwise scrupulously avoids in her filmmaking, using spectacular visual imagery to give the movie a strength that mere documentary technique wouldn't allow. Subsidiary characters like Brady's autistic sister and stern, incapable of expressing his love dad, are potent real-life people rather than Hollywood constructs, though many a character actor would leap at the chance to play these roles.

As I watched the movie I thought of many Sports-related pictures that had covered similar ground, perhaps more intellectually and that achieved classic status. Certainly Brando in Kazan's "On the Waterfront" as the boxer who "coulda been a contender" presents a mirror image to Brady's hero, though their acting styles are diametrically opposed. Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala" is the most brilliant of these movies (but not about sports) of a strong spirit overcoming physical hardship, and I was somewhat surprised that director Zhao chose to make the character's Native American background so subtle in terms of her screenplay, as opposed to Kurosawa in a Russian movie emphasizing the outsider nature of Dersu the Siberian hunter from an ethnic minority. Perhaps it is the lack of a stronger, more universal theme as developed in the Kazan and Kurosawa films that prevents "The Rider" from ascending to all-time classic status. But it is still a wonderful movie.