Spielberg's WAR HORSE--90 minutes, at least--proves a genuine holiday blockbuster

Ah, WAR HORSE! Well, 90 minutes of it, anyway. Because of being given the wrong starting time for the advance screening, and a prior commitment to interview French filmmaker Cedric Klapisch, TrustMovies simply had to leave with nearly a full hour left to view. Now that the film has officially opened -- today, in theaters everywhere, as they say -- he will certainly go back and catch that last hour (he did: see final paragraph below). So, consider the following not exactly a review but a recommendation -- because that first hour-and-a-half is supremely entertaining, beautiful to view and full of strong performances (from animals and humans) that pull you in and keep you there. (Post-screening, TM's daughter and ex-wife both claimed the last portion of the film to be even more powerful than the first.)

Steven Spielberg (shown at left), the film's director, is no stranger to blockbusters nor to family films. This one, rated PG-13, is not for the younger children (or any older ones or adults) who may grow upset seeing beautiful animals put in harm's way. For the rest of us, the movie works, as much because of this director's love of cliché and how to use it as anything else. Few filmmakers are so able to give us the tried-and-true as though it were new -- and then succeed in making it so. Much of the time, anyway.

In this tale of the love of a boy for his horse (adapted, from Michael Morpurgo's novel by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis), though we know just about everything that's going to happen from our consumption of so many earlier movies, this does not make most of what occurs any less engaging or lively.

Only the section involving a Frenchmen and his granddaughter (played by the ever-reliable Niels Arestrup, above, right, and newcomer Celine Buckens, at left) seems particularly heavy-handed and unbelievable. Fortunately, this ends rather abruptly, and we can get on with the show.

Once we finish with the necessary initial family scenes -- that's father (Peter Mullan), above right; son (Jeremy Irvine), center; mother (Emily Watson, center left) and their landlord (David Thewlis, seated left) and the procurement of the horse and its training, we then go to war, along with that horse and, eventually, the son.

As this is World War I, death is everywhere, but Spielberg manages to gloss it whenever possible. There's an initial strange, gung-ho attack (above) that begins in tall grass and ends with riderless horses as the main indication that the men are dead. Later, a pair of young deserters are executed, with the blades of a huge windmill obscuring their actual moment of death.

Other directors would do all this differently and might please a smaller section of the public, but Spielberg knows how to do it in a manner that will rake in the largest audience, giving it both what it wants and what he wants. My personal favorites among his films are the two least successful at the box-office: Empire of the Sun and A.I., but when I see something as accomplished as War Horse, I am able to appreciate what this director can do, even if the film may not be among my favorites of the year.

I'll have to see that final hour to know for sure. And I will. Meanwhile, consider this "sort-of" review a genuine recommendation. War Horse, a co-production of Touchstone Pictures and Dreamworks, opens today, Christmas 2011. Click here to find a theater near you.

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As good as his word, TM did indeed head back to see that last hour of War Horse (on the heels of watching SHAME -- more on that movie later -- so thank you, AMC Empire 25, for the chance to catch it gratis).  It's every bit as fine -- if occasionally too explicit (this is part of what you get, in exchange for Spielberg's thrilling film knowledge and ability, with each of his packages) -- as the first 90 minutes. I was moved to tears a few times by the beauty, joy and/or sadness of certain scenes (that horse, of course, and how it brings supposed enemies together on the battlefield; the German gas, sudden and overwhelming, causing one of our sweet characters to disappear within it). So stick this on your list -- in a theater, first, as it's on film, rather than hi-def video; or eventually on Blu-ray/DVD.

DVDebut: THE HORSE BOY -- one family's amazing autism story

When your child is threatened -- in this case with a seem-
ingly incurable prob-
lem -- anything, everything goes. So it is with Kristin Neff, Rupert Isaacson and their son Rowan (all three are shown, with horse, two photos below).  Rowan, in his very young years, develops full-out autism. Yes: the kind that is given to waves of non-stop tantrums and no control over bowel movements. These waves can last for up to four hours and are neurological in origin, which makes the child seemingly unreachable and worse, impossible to console.

When you've raised a "normal" child (yes, I know: whatever that means), it is very nearly impossible to imagine experiencing something like this. The other films that TrustMovies has lately seen on this subject (Her Name is Sabine, Autism: Made in the USA and even the narrative movie Adam, while all important and very good in their way, seem rather conventional next to THE HORSE BOY, a documentary directed and photographed by Michel Orion Scott, shown below.

To the wilds of Mongolia from the not-so-wilds of present- day Texas the film takes us, and the journey is alternately uplifting and upsetting but always just plain bizarre.  Because, during this family's most difficult time, young Rowan suddenly seems able to be calmed by proximity to horses, father Rupert researches everything he can about this connection and learns that Shamans -- yes, those people -- on the Mongolian plains are noted for their ability to work with the autistic.  Off goes the family, eastward to Mongolia.

What happens there is, depending on your viewpoint, amazing or maybe weird.  The film does not push us into belief, although seeing does tend to lead to believing.  For a time it seems as though Rowan goes one step forward and a couple back (at one point he even rejects horses).  Dad claims he is a better father because of his son's autism, which has forced him to listen.  "I'm glad now; we're into something good here," he later tells us.  For her part, Mom looks back at her own family and a grandmother whose bouts of manic depression make her wonder what kind of genetics she has sealed into her son.

The Horse Boy is as eye-opening a film about autism as I've seen, and the family's story is well served via interspersed interviews with autism specialists from Simon Baron-Cohen (that's right: Sacha's cousin), Temple Grandin (herself autistic) and Roy Richard Grinker. Well organized around some suspenseful moments (will the travelers finally find -- and get the help of -- the reindeer people and their shamans?), the film never loses its audience and also never forces us into complicity via melodramatics.

One of the most telling moments, for me, comes when our experts talk about how other societies treat their special people, finding a place for them and a role for them to play in society.  Are these people sick, they ask, or do they simply have a different role to play?  Here, we keep them separate from the bulk of our society; many other countries do not.

Clearly, this couple is not hurting financially, and the realization may occur as you watch the film that most of us could never afford to do anything like this, were our offspring someone like Rowan.  But this is not the main point.  This film should open the door to further research.  As Rupert Isaacson finally tells us, his son was not cured of autism, but his most aggravating and difficult symptoms have now vanished and all three of their lives are so much easier.

How the movie climaxes and then concludes is quietly stunning. The Horse Boy made its DVD debut last month and is available via the usual suspects. Running 93 minutes, it is a more than worth your time.