Grace MacLean (Scarlett Johansson) goes riding with her friend one winter morning. After some problems the girls find themselves on a snow covered road with a logging truck bearing down upon them. Grace and her horse Pilgrim are hit, both suffering severe injuries.
Grace's parents, Annie (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Robert (Sam Neil), arrive at the hospital and find their daughter in bad shape. In even worse shape is Pilgrim, who the vet wants to put down out of mercy. Annie refuses to allow the horse to be killed.
Annie, a busy magazine editor, senses her family slipping away from her. Grace and Pilgrim are having a hard time adjusting to their lives after the accident. Annie seeks the help of Tom Booker (Robert Redford), a purported horse whisperer. Her offer to bring Tom out to New York is rejected, so Annie does the next best thing. She packs up Grace and Pilgrim and drives to Montana, to Tom.
When the convoy reaches the Booker Ranch, Tom agrees to help Pilgrim and in so doing helps Grace to start coming out of her shell. Annie starts having feelings for Tom and is torn between those fellings and loyalty to her family.
Horse Whisperer is a decent movie that's a little too long. The film is filled with picturesque shots of the Montana countryside. While this is nice it's a bit much. At times I found myself wondering if I was watching a movie or propaganda from the Montata Tourism Department. Adding to the sense of excessive duration was the pace which meandered none to quickly.
Another minor problem was Tom's role as the absolute savior. There is nothing he can't fix. He's part psychoanalyst, and part Jedi Master not to mention omnipotent. All that wrapped in a rugged cowboy exterior. After a while it got to be a little too much.
Redford did do a good job of playing Tom and even better was Scarlett Johanson. She was quite convincing as Grace the troubled teen. On the flip side was Kristin Scott Thomas whose performance I didn't care for at all. She wasn't very persuasive or likable. I did like that Pilgrim was more a character than a prop.
Horse Whisperer is a well writen film, if a bit too long. It's also, for the most part, a well acted one. The few shortcomings keep this from being a really good movie. This is not to say that The Horse Whisperer is not entertaining, just not as much as it could have been.
Image from Touchstone Pictures