REVIEW: Buck Paints a Stirring Portrait of the Real-Life Horse Whisperer

The formidable subject of Buck shares his initials and ideals with another, even more imposing romantic hero. Black Beauty, a horse with a human range of intellect and emotion, is the title character and narrator of Anna Sewell's 1877 novel. His life story is marked by hardship and hard work, all of it at the mercy of morally variable owners. Sewell wanted her readers in horse-dependent 19th-century England to see their mounts, carriage-pullers, and field-plowers not as insensible beasts but creatures worthy of respect and compassion. Buck Brannaman, a Wyoming horse trainer with a resume that includes inspiring the Nicholas Evans novel that became Robert Redford's 1998 movie The Horse Whisperer, is the 21st-century embodiment of that same cause.

Brannaman's early life in Montana and Idaho, as first-time director Cindy Meehl takes considerable time to point out, was blighted by an abusive father. Brannaman and his older brother were trained in the art of trick roping by their alcoholic dad (their mother died when they were young), who moved them around a competitive circuit like show ponies. The beatings became so intense that the children were removed to foster homes, and eventually Buck came into the care of Betsey Shirley, the redoubtable woman he now calls "Mom." He also crosses paths with Ray Hunt, a leader in the "natural horsemanship" movement, a training technique that uses a gentle, intuitive sort of persuasion to bring young horses to heel. Taken by Hunt's method (which was derived from that of the early 20th century teachings of Tom and Bill Dorrance) and the moral bearing that stood behind it, Buck vowed to adopt both. It may have taken almost 100 years, but Sewell's ideals -- which were waved away by some as feminine and sentimental; Black Beauty was relegated to "children's classic" status -- took root in cowboy country.

Robert Redford, who appears as one of the talking heads interspersed with the stories of Brannaman's childhood and footage of him at work on the clinic circuit, makes a telling comment. He describes his first meeting with the trainer as an incredulous one, describing Buck's cowboy outfit as an eye-rolling caricature. It took Redford a while to see that Brannaman is the real thing, or as real as it gets in the post-cowboy world, and part of the pleasure of Buck is making that discovery ourselves. Soft-spoken and stoical, Brannaman is a firm but sensitive presence in front of the camera and facing down a spooked horse. Scenes of the horseman demonstrating the Tao of Buck -- he seems to capture a mare's lean, eliciting obedience with the tap of a flag on her behind -- are riveting because they seem to capture communion more than dominance. It's an improbably masculine dance.

The connection between Buck's fearful past and a present dedicated to humane treatment of the vulnerable is overtly drawn -- if anything the connection is too neat. Brannaman compares horses to children (as does Meehl, in a sequence involving his bond with his daughter), saying they both want to be led. But his daughter will eventually discard the bridle, and there is a note of disingenuousness to the suggestion that Brannaman is doing these horses -- who nowadays are mainly trained for our entertainment or kept as pets -- a cosmic favor. I'm all for reform of the means, but let's not pretend the end is a revelation, or a given.

A late sequence depicts a woman who has brought her troubled horse to one of Buck's clinics (he tours the country almost ceaselessly to give them). A problem child, the horse was deprived of oxygen during its birth; when Buck can't tame him, he suggests that the wilding animal is a projection of the owner's chaotic life. It's a startling confrontation, and the first time we see Buck rattled. Though Buck, like Black Beauty is ultimately a plea for compassion and kindness for both horses and humans, in that moment it is clear where Brannaman's loyalties lie.