The Rider ★★★½
IN APRIL 2016 promising rodeo rider Brady Jandreau came off a bronco during competition and was kicked in the head.
He suffered a fractured skull and spent days in a coma before walking out of hospital in his gown and trudging back to the family farm in the Badlands of South Dakota.
Doctors told him that ongoing seizures and the fragility caused by the wound meant he should never ride horses again, let alone compete.
At the same time Brady’s family was doing it tough.
His widowed father Tim was struggling to make ends meet financially while trying to manage his alcohol and gambling problems. Teenage sister Lily was largely housebound due to her severe autism and all continued to struggle emotionally with the death of their wife and mother a couple of years earlier.
Documentary writer/ director Chloe Zhao met Brady around this time and decided to make a film about the Jandreau family with Brady, Tim and Lily playing slightly-altered versions of themselves.
The result is called The Rider and it’s a remarkable achievement due to the way it combines documentary realism with a conventional non-fiction narrative and cinematic treatment.
The film is a loving tribute to the people of this unique part of the world within a deeply personal story of a man coming to terms with the changing fortunes and limitations of life.
Brady is forced to confront a future that may not be everything he wished for but will still give his life purpose, meaning and joy. At the same time he must deal with the varying opinions of what it means to be a man, a provider and a loved one.
Under Zhao’s assured direction Brady, essentially playing himself, reflects in a quiet and dignified way on his path forward; should he continue to take risks and follow a dream or accept a new reality that considers others to an equal extent.
Some of the most poignant scenes that add further depth to these issues are those when Brady spends time in a rehabilitation hospital with a fellow rodeo competitor, Lane Scott, played again by the real person, whose own career ended with a car accident that left him in a wheelchair with severe disabilities.
This type of hybrid documentary is difficult to pull off, but Zhao has suceeded where the likes of Clint Eastwood failed badly.
In 2016 Eastwood’s The 3:15 to Paris recreated the incident when three off-duty marines stopped a terrorist attack about to be carried out on a French passenger train.
Eastwood used the real marines to play themselves in the hope it would add authenticity, power and empathy to the film. Poor acting, direction and editing killed that film.
In contrast Zhao’s The Rider is deeply moving and thoroughly authentic. The acting is quite decent for the majority of the time, particularly from Brady, and the cinematography showcases the stunning scenery.
I’m not sold fully on this type of film. Perhaps it would have still worked better as a straight documentary, but it’s thoroughly engaging and moving nevertheless.