LEAN ON PETE
Kes with a nosebag…
CERTIFICATE 15 DIRECTOR andrew Haigh Starring charlie Plummer, steve Buscemi, chloë sevigny SCREENPLAY andrew Haigh DISTRIBUTOR curzon artificial eye running time 122 mins OUT 4 may
a fter the twin triumphs of Weekend and 45 Years, Brit writer-director Andrew Haigh headed to San Francisco as a key creative on Looking, HBO’s ace comedy drama about a group of gay friends. Now he returns to film with an adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s 2010 book, an intimate exploration of a boy’s bruised heart set against the wide-open spaces of America’s badlands.
The eponymous Pete is a racehorse belonging to wheezy, sleazy trainer Del (Steve Buscemi). The boy, meanwhile, is teenager Charley (Charlie Plummer), who helps at the stables to escape a miserable home life. Only his gloom is aggravated when Del condemns Pete to the knacker’s yard, a decision that spurs Charley into saddling up and hightailing it across the desert…
All dust and dysfunction, the opening stretch is resplendent as the makeshift family of Del, Charley and jockey/waitress Bonnie (Chloë Sevigny) criss-cross between racetracks, kicking up a cloudy atmosphere at once elegiac and romantic. However, when the focus narrows to boy and beast, the journey becomes a bit of a slog, burdened by clichés and so miserabilist as to bring the film to its knees. Worth the ride, certainly, but you might want to rein in your expectations.
THE VERDICT
Beautiful and sorrowful, but fails to match the Wim Wenders road movies that so inspired Haigh.