Lean on Pete | Little White Lies

Lean on Pete

03 May 2018 / Released: 04 May 2018

Words by Ed Gibbs

Directed by Andrew Haigh

Starring Charlie Plummer, Steve Zahn, and Travis Fimmel

A person wading in a river, leading a horse into the water.
A person wading in a river, leading a horse into the water.
3

Anticipation.

Horsing aside, casting Boardwalk Empire’s Charlie Plummer and Steve Buscemi together on the big screen sounds neat and kooky.

4

Enjoyment.

A standout performance from Plummer makes this thoughtful drama swing.

4

In Retrospect.

Less a gallop, more a gentle canter through one teen’s travails, and all the better for it.

Char­lie Plum­mer proves his act­ing chops in this equine dra­ma from writer/​director Andrew Haigh.

Pret­ty soon, Char­lie Plummer’s image will be ubiq­ui­tous. The Board­walk Empire reg­u­lar, recent­ly seen in Rid­ley Scott’s All the Mon­ey in the World (as John Paul Get­ty III), has a wise-beyond-his-years qual­i­ty about him that grounds his nuanced per­for­mances. Before hys­te­ria ensues, Plum­mer com­fort­ably leads Andrew Haigh’s fol­low-up to 2015’s sil­ver-dol­lar/­grey-pound suc­cess, 45 Years.

In Lean on Pete, Plum­mer plays the trou­bled Charley, a 15-year-old try­ing to watch over an alco­holic rogu­ish father (his moth­er has, we lat­er learn, long since got up and left) in Port­land, Ore­gon. Wan­der­ing the streets in search of work, Charley meets the gruff Del (Steve Busce­mi), a small-time horse train­er who takes the teen under his wing. All goes well until Charley learns that his favourite horse, Lean on Pete, is to be slaugh­tered, hav­ing out­grown his rac­ing use.

Dis­mayed by Del’s prag­mat­ic atti­tude to the ani­mal, Charley pro­ceeds to take off across Amer­i­ca with his boss’ truck and trail­er, in search of his last sur­viv­ing rel­a­tive, an aunt he bare­ly knowns. Along the way he meets a series of down-on-their luck types, some of whom appear will­ing to help, only to then rob him. The horse, mean­while, grows weary of being cooped up in a trail­er in the hot desert, lend­ing its fate an air of inevitability.

Plummer’s per­for­mance, which is nev­er less than assured, helps glue togeth­er the more dis­parate ele­ments and char­ac­ters of the film. The actor is a fix­ture in almost every frame – and when he does wan­der off on foot into the desert, Mag­nus Nor­den­hof Jonck’s hand­some pho­tog­ra­phy opens up the young lad’s world. Con­fid­ing in his trust­ed horse as he walks (he can­not ride, we learn lat­er), the extent of Charley’s dif­fi­cult upbring­ing becomes all-too clear. It is anoth­er authen­tic mark­er show­ing us just how eas­i­ly some­one Charley’s age can (and does) slip through the cracks and onto the mean streets of society.

Charley’s jour­ney is akin to a bumpy ram­ble, with some pit stops more suc­cess­ful than oth­ers (he nar­row­ly escapes being arrest­ed and is almost tak­en away by fam­i­ly ser­vices on more than one occa­sion). But gen­er­al­ly, most folk seem to warm to the lad and take him in.

Based on the 2010 nov­el by Rich­mond Fontaine front­man and author Willy Vlautin, Haigh’s film isn’t as harsh as it could have been – although there are plen­ty of unlike­able char­ac­ters, and the whiff of sex and drugs is nev­er far away. And while it may lack the bite of a work like Kel­ly Reichardt’s Cer­tain Women (which feels sim­i­lar in tone), we do get a clear sense of Charley’s predica­ment, which seems increas­ing­ly des­per­ate. When the finale does even­tu­al­ly arrive, it’s with more a sense of relief than a clear resolution.

Lean on Pete may feel a tad too sub­tle for some, but it’s beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed – and there’s no dis­put­ing Plummer’s act­ing chops, and that unde­ni­able star quality.

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