The Rid­er – first look review

In the midst of a selec­tion char­ac­terised by its polit­i­cal streak, one of the sleep­er hits of the 2017 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val is an atmos­pher­ic, hyp­not­ic por­trait of a young cow­boy in exis­ten­tial cri­sis. Brady (Brady Jan­dreau) was a promis­ing rodeo star until a vio­lent acci­dent cut his career short – at least for a while. Despite an impres­sive scar on his head held togeth­er with a dozen sta­ples, the young man is cer­tain he will sad­dle up again very soon.

The face of the young cow­boy is unread­able – think Heath Ledger in Broke­back Moun­tain. His aware­ness of dan­ger is uncer­tain and the threat of injury hov­ers over the entire movie. Yet as the film soft­ly glides through sev­er­al scenes of every­day life in the plains of South Dako­ta, Brady’s impa­tience and reck­less­ness start to make sense and gain in poignan­cy. In the alien world of the Amer­i­can heart­land, horse rid­ing and rodeo are still very much at the cen­tre of men’s lives.

Brady’s father Wayne (Wayne Jan­dreau) rep­re­sents the old-fash­ioned man­hood that cow­boys evoke, mock­ing his son’s weak­ness one minute and crit­i­cis­ing his reck­less­ness the next. This man, how­ev­er, isn’t the focus of the film. Rather than excus­ing out­dat­ed prin­ci­ples, Chloe Zhao is inter­est­ed in the men’s strug­gle to rec­on­cile the old cul­ture of rodeo with a more mod­ern and rea­son­able def­i­n­i­tion of masculinity.

A recur­rent char­ac­ter and sym­bol of this strug­gle is Lane Scott (him­self), a young man and friend of Brady’s who was the most promis­ing of the band, but end­ed up quad­ri­pleg­ic after a fall, only able to com­mu­ni­cate via hand sig­nals. Togeth­er the two friends con­stant­ly revis­it Lane’s most tri­umphant vic­to­ries on tape at the hos­pi­tal, despite both know­ing very well that Lane will nev­er ride again.

Brady’s desire to become a rodeo star isn’t so much ham­pered by the dan­ger of the sport – Lane is still proud of his achieve­ments. Rather, his dream clash­es with his altru­is­tic impuls­es and respon­si­bil­i­ties. Although he is very much a lon­er, spend­ing a lot of his time in the silent plains train­ing hors­es, many peo­ple depend on him. He takes care of Lane but also of his autis­tic sis­ter Lil­ly (Lil­ly Jan­dreau) and has to help his father pro­vide for the family.

Brady is torn through­out the film between his self­ish desire to leave every­one behind to become a rodeo star; and his affec­tion and care for his fam­i­ly and friends at home. Here lies Zhao’s fem­i­nist touch, look­ing at a man who is part of a very patri­ar­chal soci­ety and yet strug­gles with ​‘mater­nal’ impuls­es usu­al­ly attrib­uted to women.

As the names of the actors show, Zhao worked with non-actors and built the film from their own expe­ri­ences in rodeo and horse train­ing. This real­is­tic, col­lab­o­ra­tive style allows her cam­era to move freely around the char­ac­ters and cre­ate an incred­i­bly absorb­ing sense of place with breath­tak­ing images, whether in the harsh light of the mid­day sun, the soft haze of the morn­ing or the warm tones of the mag­ic hour. Heavy-heart­ed cow­boys, wild hors­es and bro­ken dreams: The Rid­er is a great film about what it means to be a man.