The movie The Rider isn't really about rodeo. It's 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 Chloé Zhao may have been born in Beijing, but she has made one of the most authentic films about the West in recent years and one of the best films of the year so far. Don't miss it!
She's drawn on the real-life story of a young man's 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's monster, a metal plate rides underneath, and he has an occasional immobililty in his right hand-his rope hand. The doctor tells him no more riding, no more rodeo. She might as well tell him not to breathe.
He's "recuperating," 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's. The disappointment his fans feel when they find him working at a supermarket is visible to the taciturn Brady and to us.
In his spare time-and this is where the movie comes spectacularly to life-he trains horses. Watching him work with them, you know for sure that he's no actor. This is his real-life job, and Zhao has captured those delicate moments of growing trust.
Not that interested in rodeo? You don't 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.
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, "I do listen to you. I've always listened to you. It's you who said, 'Cowboy up,' 'Grit your teeth,' 'Be a man,'" the kinds of messages men give their sons that sometimes boomerang back to break their hearts.
Cinematographer James Joshua Richards's deft close-in camerawork captures the personalities of the horses, and his wide views put the windswept grasslands of South Dakota's Badlands and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The film is shot partly on the Lakota reservation, but not much is made of the cast's Native American heritage. By grounding the script in Brady's 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.
And what was it like for Brady to work with the filmmaker? "She 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?" he said in a Vanity Fair story by Nicole Sperling. "She 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."
