‘War Horse’ is emotional and heart-wrenching with a superb cast
You won’t find a more emotional or heart-wrenching movie this year than the Steven Spielberg-directed War Horse. The movie was inspired by the Tony Award-winning stage play, which itself was based on a best-selling novel written by Michael Morpurgo and published in 1982. It was Spielberg’s daughter, an equestrienne, who encouraged her dad to someday make a movie about a horse. But this is no sweet tale of how a boy shares a lifelong bond with his pet.
The story begins with a family living on a modest farm in the English county of Devon. Ted and Rose Narracott and their teenaged son, Albert, work the land that is owned by a man named Lyons. Ted is at a local horse auction, looking to buy a plow horse for the farm, when a handsome and spirited Thoroughbred is offered for sale. Ted and landlord Lyons get into a bidding war, and the stubborn Ted ends up buying the Thoroughbred named Joey. Rose is dismayed with her husband’s impractical purchase, but Albert forms an instant bond with Joey and the two become inseparable.
World War I breaks out, and Albert’s father sells Joey to a Captain in the British Army who promises to take care of Joey and will return the horse after the war. The Captain dies in an early battle, and Joey passes through the European war zones and into the hands of different owners, some with passion and empathy for the horses, some who cruelly use them as beasts of burden until they drop dead in their tracks.
Albert is notified of the Captain’s death, and not knowing what became of Joey, sets out on a journey of his own in search of his beloved friend. The ending is not actually when Albert and Joey are reunited; you know from the get-go that it will eventually happen. Their reunion is predictable and contrived, and the ending a little sappy, but by then, you’re so emotionally invested that none of that matters.
Though one synopsis of the movie calls it an “epic adventure for all ages,” I would not recommend it to a child less than 10 or 11 years old. To get the PG-13 rating, Spielberg kept the battle scenes to only about 10 minutes of the film, but those minutes were graphic and violent. Yes, war is hell, and Spielberg did his due diligence and portrayed the battle and war scenes accurately.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are lovely and colorful vistas of the European countryside, there is humor throughout, and, of course, there’s Joey. Spielberg created the horse in all his nobility; that under any circumstances, Joey exists in order to please his master.
The cast is superb, made up mostly of European actors with a variety of film and stage experience. Only Emily Watson, who plays Rose Narracott, would be familiar to American audiences from her performances in such movies as Breaking the Waves and Hilary and Jackie. Jeremy Irvine, as Albert Narracott, makes his film debut here.
