Horseracing, Disney Style
Penny is a picture-perfect wife and mother, but her most salient trait is that she’s an erstwhile Southern belle. After her mother dies, she agrees to take on her senile father’s horse farm in Virginia. She is supported in her efforts by expert trainer Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich) and Eddie (Nelsan Ellis), Secretariat’s handler, who is depicted with a gaggy racism that only Disney can get away with. Ultimately, Chenery succeeds in conquering the old-boys club of horseracing and … well, we already know that in 1973, Secretariat became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years. So it’s not like there’s much suspense.
Don’t get me wrong. Secretariat is an inspiring, family-friendly film and there are plenty of worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon with your kids. The animals are beautiful and the first-person shots of the racing scenes are truly exciting.
But Penny Chenery doesn’t make for much of a heroine. Like every other woman of her time, her main adversaries were men who said she couldn’t. But unlike most other 1970 housewives, Penny had the benefit of wealth, leisure and beauty. Also, she was apparently psychic, because she seemed to know from the moment Secretariat was born that he was destined to be a Triple Crown winner.
Seeing John Malkovich cast in a children’s movie (!!) is something of a novelty, maybe because he plays a slightly more eccentric but less profane version of his usual self. He doesn’t bring much to the role of Lucien—you are acutely aware that you’re watching John Malkovich playing dress-up with a French accent.
Horseracing is a fascinating subject with a bizarre culture surrounding it (mint juleps, those hats!), but Mike Rich’s contrived script leached away all of the actual drama of Secretariat’s story. Rich seems to not understand that horses don't race because they enjoy it, but because people make them do it in order to become or stay rich. This isn’t to imply that Secretariat was necessarily ill-treated, just that the story is disingenuous and less interesting for it.
A house wife with little knowledge of horse-racing fosters one of the greatest race horses of all time as the story of the 1973 Triple Crown winner comes to the screen in this inspirational underdog drama based on the novel Secretariat: The Making of a Champion by William Nack and starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich. Penny Chenery (Lane) is a devoted mother and housewife whose ailing father is the proprietor of Meadow Stables in Virginia. When her father becomes too ill to tend to his horses, Penny agrees to take over the stables despite her inexperience. Desperate, she turns to veteran horse trainer Lucien Laurin (Malkovich) to help show her the ropes. Up to this point, horse racing has been a decidedly male-dominated sport. But with Lucien's help, Penny prepares to prove that gender has no bearing on one's ability to breed a fast race horse. As Secretariat blasts out of the gates to leave his competition in the dust, the whole world watches in amazement, and a legend is born.
~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Movie data provided by AMG
