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THE HORSE ROBBED Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer is watchable for the wrong reason—the miscasting of Kristin Scott Thomas. Is it her hair? Is it because she’s suggesting Tina Brown? She’s indisputably the least romantic major actress to come along since Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. The movie, with its wide-open Montana panoramas, isn’t quite boring, but it’s a close call. Sometimes you’re not sure what you’re watching—a Psyche 101 soap opera about a horse and its owner needing rehabilitation after a nightmarish accident, or a love story resistant to audience response because Scott Thomas isn’t up to Redford’s standards. (She’s not up to Harrison Ford’s, either, in Random Hearts, another bummer from Sydney Pollack.) You’re far from shocked to learn in Horse Whisperer it’s she who needs the most help. What really seems to be the matter with the movie is the horse is robbed of due; he’s certainly the most sympathetic character. A few years after directing this, Redford made amends with us by making The Legend of Bagger Vance. Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved.
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