‘LEAN ON PETE’

R 2:01 ★★☆☆

There isn’t much story to “Lean on Pete”: A 16-yearold kid (Charlie Plummer), distraught after the sudden death of his lackadaisical single father (Travis Fimmel), runs off in search of his only other known relative. That journey of 1,000 miles or so is undertaken in the company of a worn-out racehorse, whose name lends the film its title.

That’s it. And yet, at the center of this oddly riveting little picaresque is a performance of such quiet power by Plummer — as an antihero both rash and precociously resourceful — that it’s easy to overlook the film’s flaws.

The 18-year-old Plummer’s understated acting is a revelation. By turns frantic, single-minded and lost in the space between confusion and resolve, the character of Charley is rendered as a work in progress: a half-finished, yet deeply appealing, version of the man he will become.

The impulse to be nurtured — to be loved, to find a shoulder to lean on — is strong. But so, the film argues, is the equally human desire for someone or something, if only a horse, to lean back on us.

“Lean on Pete” plays at 5:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive.

Starring: Charlie Plummer, Amy Seimetz, Steve Buscemi, Chloë Sevigny, and Steve Zahn. (Strong language and brief violence.)

— Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post