{"id":7287,"date":"2018-06-05T08:19:39","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T12:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7287"},"modified":"2018-08-21T07:07:29","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T11:07:29","slug":"the-rider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7287","title":{"rendered":"The Rider"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe movie The Rider<\/em> isn\u2019t really about rodeo. It\u2019s a character study and an exploration of what it means to lose your dreams, and how to be a man in a culture that glorifies danger. Writer-Director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao may have been born in Beijing, but she has made one of the most authentic films about the West in recent years (trailer<\/a>) and one of the best films of the year so far. Don\u2019t miss it!<\/p>\n

She\u2019s drawn on the real-life story of a young man\u2019s recovery from a rodeo injury that nearly killed him and probably will if he falls again. Brady Blackburn (played by Brady Jandreau) had a solid career on the rodeo circuit in front of him. As the film opens, his skull looks like Frankenstein\u2019s monster, a metal plate rides underneath, and he has an occasional immobililty in his right hand\u2014his rope hand. The doctor tells him no more riding, no more rodeo. She might as well tell him not to breathe.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s \u201crecuperating,\u201d but determined to get back in the saddle. He lives in a trailer with his father (Tim Jandreau), who puts on a gruff front, and feisty 15-year-old sister, Lilly (Lilly Jandreau), who has some degree of Asperger\u2019s. The disappointment his fans feel when they find him working at a supermarket is visible to the taciturn Brady and to us.<\/p>\n

In his spare time\u2014and this is where the movie comes spectacularly to life\u2014he trains horses. Watching him work with them, you know for sure that he\u2019s no actor. This is his real-life job, and Zhao has captured those delicate moments of growing trust.<\/p>\n

Not that interested in rodeo? You don\u2019t see much of it. And most of the rodeo scenes are in the video clips Brady and his best friend Lane watch. Watching them watching is the bittersweet point. Lane was a star bull-rider now unable to walk or speak. The way Brady interacts with him is full of true generosity and mutual affection.<\/p>\n

When Brady throws his saddle into the truck to go to another rodeo, in vain his father tells him not to. The father accuses him of never listening to him, and Brady says, \u201cI do listen to you. I\u2019ve always listened to you. It\u2019s you who said, \u2018Cowboy up,\u2019 \u2018Grit your teeth,\u2019 \u2018Be a man,\u2019\u201d the kinds of messages men give their sons that sometimes boomerang back to break their hearts.<\/p>\n

Cinematographer James Joshua Richards\u2019s deft close-in camerawork captures the personalities of the horses, and his wide views put the windswept grasslands of South Dakota\u2019s Badlands and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The film is shot partly on the Lakota reservation, but not much is made of the cast\u2019s Native American heritage. By grounding the script in Brady\u2019s real-life recovery and by surrounding him with his real-life family and friends, Zhao creates a wholly natural feel for the film, which has been nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards.<\/p>\n

And what was it like for Brady to work with the filmmaker? \u201cShe was able to step into our world: riding horses, moving cows, stuff like that. Why should we be scared to step foot into her world?\u201d he said in a Vanity Fair<\/em> story by Nicole Sperling<\/a>. \u201cShe would do things like get on a 1,700-pound animal for us. And trust us. So we did the same. We got on her 1,700-pound animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics\u2019 rating: 97%; audiences 80%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The movie The Rider isn\u2019t really about rodeo. It\u2019s a character study and an exploration of what it means to lose your dreams, and how to be a man in a culture that glorifies danger. Writer-Director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao may have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Rider - One of the best films of 2018 so far. How do you live in a world when you can't do what you love or be who you thought you'd be?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[440,1288,366,56,57,359,104],"tags":[1326,1325,1328,73,1327,1324],"class_list":["post-7287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-culture","category-drama","category-film","category-movies","category-review","category-the-morgue","tag-brady-jandreau","tag-chloe-zhao","tag-horses","tag-nature","tag-rodeo","tag-south-dakota"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Tx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7289,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7287\/revisions\/7289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}