PARK CITY – There have been renewed calls over the past decade for significant criminal justice reform in the United States. Everything from rehabilitation programs to private prisons to racial profiling in sentencing, among other topics, are under the glare of a generation that sees how the policies of the past forty years have failed. In that context, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre‘s directorial debut, “The Mustang,” tells a familiar tale of a convict who needs a wakeup call and gets it in the most unexpected manner, wild horse training.
WATCH: Matthias Schoenaerts Attempts To Train Wild Horses In “The Mustang” Trailer
Filmed in what is now an abandoned prison facility in Nevada, “Mustang” centers on Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts, captivating as always), a longtime inmate who seems wholly beaten down by the system. He has a strained relationship with his teenage daughter Martha (Gideon Adlon, very good) and little interest in thoughts of the prison psychologist trying to get him out of his shell (Connie Britton, barely there). When he’s assigned to an outdoor cleanup crew, he gains the attention of Myles (Bruce Dern, doing his Bruce Dern thing), the curmudgeonly director of the facility’s mustang program. Myles recruits Roman to join their team where he learns the ins and outs of training these beautiful wild creatures into docile and respectful horses ready to sell at auction (how the program pays for itself).
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The stoic Roman is befriended by Henry (Jason Mitchell, superb again), a fellow inmate who has found his calling as a trick rider. Over the weeks that follow, Roman bonds with one of the more rambunctious horses and he actually starts to look forward to his assignment. When things go terribly wrong at the public sal Roman’s world finally comes into clearer focus. A development that was pretty easy to see coming miles beforehand and, sadly, that’s the most disappointing aspect of the film.
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Schoenaerts and his co-stars are obviously committed, often giving their characters more depth and realism than the page suggests. That’s because the script, co-written by de Clermont-Tonnerre, Mona Fastvold (“The Childhood of a Leader“) and Brock Norman Brock is fairly pedestrian and the sparks really only occur when the director focuses on the personal rapport between Roman and his horse.
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The film shot in the fall of 2017, a good four months after the debut of Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider” at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. It has to be a remarkable coincidence, but if you’ve seen Zhao’s masterpiece you’ve already experienced a lot of the cinematic aesthetic de Clermont-Tonnerre and cinematographer Ruben Impens have fashioned here. It’s often a beautiful and natural escape from the sterile interiors of Roman’s prison experience, but many of the shots seem very familiar even if that wasn’t the attention. It’s as if Zhao and de Clermont-Tonnerre were somehow channeling the same creative well if that’s possible.
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The Focus Features release also leaves much of Roman’s background to conjecture. We know he had a violent past, but too much of his backstory feels like it’s missing and it keeps the audience at a distance from the character. And, sadly, that makes the increasingly strained relationship between Roman and his daughter feel forced (despite the valiant efforts of Schoenaerts and Adlon to sell it as realistically as possible). The horses are the only characters we genuinely want to root for.
The film’s title cards end with images of different real-life inmates and their horses who have been part of a similar program. These are the people’s whose stories you want to hear. These are the subjects who have completely had their lives changed by this experience. Considering the long line of films in this genre (inmate finds redemption thanks to A, B or C) the idea De Clermont-Tonnerre kept so many of the familiar tropes and avoided these genuine stories is quizzical. The initial inspiration was clearly there, but the execution simply falls short. [C+]
“The Mustang” opens in limited release on March 15.
Check out all our coverage from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival here.
