Based on the remarkable true story, "Secretariat" chronicles the spectacular journey of the 1973 Triple Crown winner. Housewife and mother Penny Chenery Tweedy agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing experience. Against all odds, with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin, she manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years and what may be the greatest racehorse of all time.
Genres: Drama, Biopic and Sports Running Time: 1 hr. 56 min. Release Date: October 2nd, 2010 (sneak preview); October 8th, 2010 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG for brief mild language. Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Distribution
Cast And Credits
Starring:
Diane Lane, John Malkovich, Dylan Walsh, Dylan Baker, Margo Martindale
Directed by:
Randall Wallace
Produced by:
Bill Johnson, Michael Rich, Mark Ciardi
In ‘Secretariat,’ Dark Horse Is the Owner (October 3, 2010) Squeaky clean and as square as a military flattop, “Secretariat” doesn’t take the wide or long view when it comes to horse racing or anything else, despite an occasional oblique nod to Vietnam. Instead it sticks to the Disney gospel that life means following your dreams, which here belong largely to those who surrounded Secretariat in his glory years, including his owner, Penny Chenery (Ms. Lane, sincere and dulled down), and trainer, Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich, insincere and showboating). Don’t fret, though: there are plenty of pretty horses — and a few hilarious close-ups of Secretariat and a rival at the starting gate eyeballing each other like boxers in the ring — even if the triumph here is of the human spirit and not the horse.
That tale gets swishing in Denver in 1969 with Penny, immaculately dressed and coiffed, whipping something up for her four children and husband, Jack Tweedy (Dylan Walsh). One phone call later and Penny and brood are back in her Virginia childhood home, burying her mother. She stays to care for her ailing father, Chris (Scott Glenn), a horseman whose mind and farm are slipping away. After a Kodak-moment flashback of her father and her as a child, Penny determines to save her patrimony, telling her husband that she’s taking care of business, a declaration of independence that might resonate more inspirationally if the movie actually showed you how she managed to care for the farm and her children (two of whom look under 12).
But uplift is the name of the game in “Secretariat,” not little details like life. Directed by Randall Wallace with his previous lack of subtly (“We Were Soldiers”), it opens with a shot of the sky and Penny reading in voice-over a passage about horses from the Book of Job: “Do you give the horse his strength?” (That passage, in a different translation, is also used in Peter Shaffer’s play “Equus.”) The rest of the writing can be blamed on Mike Rich, whose screenplay was, as the credits put it, “suggested by” William Nack’s book “Secretariat: The Making of a Champion.” It’s hard not to think that the folks behind “The Blind Side” — last year’s inspirational about a steel magnolia of faith and a sports hero — deserve some credit too.
Alas, Ms. Lane, smoothed and nearly emptied out, doesn’t have the material or direction that Sandra Bullock enjoyed in “The Blind Side” (or the flattering costumes). Penny Chenery’s story is not uninteresting, and she certainly doesn’t appear to have been the paper doll of the movie. The real woman hired the William Morris Agency to book Secretariat’s appearances, and said of her horse-racing life, “I love the prestige, the excitement and the money.” The movie’s Penny spends a lot of time fretting and every so often stares meaningfully into Secretariat’s eyes (or muzzle). That said, in one mad, delicious moment, she does bathe Secretariat alongside his black groom, Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis, from HBO’s “True Blood”), the two humans working up quite the lather and harmonious vision to the sounds of “Oh Happy Day” (When Jesus Washed).
What did Secretariat think at that moment? The question seems reasonable given how the movie treats its animal star (familiar Disney meat) as both a cute-and-cuddly and a spiritual messenger. It was said that Secretariat liked to be photographed, a delightful idea that the movie embraces by showing him turn to the cameras. And certainly the movie flirts with the standard Disney take on animals as sentient creatures in command of their destinies and serving human needs. Yet this fuzzy humanism is at odds with the movie’s other message — deliriously blasted during the final race of the Triple Crown with reprises of Job and “Oh Happy Day” — that Secretariat galloped down the stretch guided by something other than the jockey’s crop.
In ‘Secretariat,’ Dark Horse Is the Owner (October 3, 2010) What made Secretariat run? Sometimes it was the whip, which the movie omits, much as it elides anything really uncomfortable about horse racing. Money played a part, though it generally doesn’t in the movie, an exception being Penny’s shrewd decision to sell shares in Secretariat’s future as a sire. Every so often, mainly when one of the digital cameras is hovering right next to the horse as he tears down the track, his legs churning and breath hammering, you can pretend that Secretariat ran because he could and not because someone put a saddle on him and rode him out of the gate. It’s a pleasurable, seductive fantasy partly because, as we have known from the start of cinema, the sight of a running horse is a beautiful thing.
In ‘Secretariat,’ Dark Horse Is the Owner (October 3, 2010) Squeaky clean and as square as a military flattop, “Secretariat” doesn’t take the wide or long view when it comes to horse racing or anything else, despite an occasional oblique nod to Vietnam. Instead it sticks to the Disney gospel that life means following your dreams, which here belong largely to those who surrounded Secretariat in his glory years, including his owner, Penny Chenery (Ms. Lane, sincere and dulled down), and trainer, Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich, insincere and showboating). Don’t fret, though: there are plenty of pretty horses — and a few hilarious close-ups of Secretariat and a rival at the starting gate eyeballing each other like boxers in the ring — even if the triumph here is of the human spirit and not the horse. 
But uplift is the name of the game in “Secretariat,” not little details like life. Directed by Randall Wallace with his previous lack of subtly (“We Were Soldiers”), it opens with a shot of the sky and Penny reading in voice-over a passage about horses from the Book of Job: “Do you give the horse his strength?” (That passage, in a different translation, is also used in Peter Shaffer’s play “Equus.”) The rest of the writing can be blamed on Mike Rich, whose screenplay was, as the credits put it, “suggested by” William Nack’s book “Secretariat: The Making of a Champion.” It’s hard not to think that the folks behind “The Blind Side” — last year’s inspirational about a steel magnolia of faith and a sports hero — deserve some credit too. 
In ‘Secretariat,’ Dark Horse Is the Owner (October 3, 2010) What made Secretariat run? Sometimes it was the whip, which the movie omits, much as it elides anything really uncomfortable about horse racing. Money played a part, though it generally doesn’t in the movie, an exception being Penny’s shrewd decision to sell shares in Secretariat’s future as a sire. Every so often, mainly when one of the digital cameras is hovering right next to the horse as he tears down the track, his legs churning and breath hammering, you can pretend that Secretariat ran because he could and not because someone put a saddle on him and rode him out of the gate. It’s a pleasurable, seductive fantasy partly because, as we have known from the start of cinema, the sight of a running horse is a beautiful thing.
