Review of The Rider (2018) by Equity44 — 28 Jun 2019

Confession: I am a PBR fan and also watch general rodeos too. I'm also a movie and literature fan. The lure of rodeo as with all spectator sports is watching participants attempt to excel at very difficult things that not everyone can do. I often wonder how these young men can suffer injury after injury and still mount up after recovering and I wonder about what their lives will be like when they are too old to ride. Yes, the sport plays upon our yearning for the romanticized days of the Old West but it also allows the participants an avenue for rising above mundane existence.

In literature and cinema I look for something that uplifts the spirit or in dark pieces takes you where you wouldn't necessarily want to walk yourself. This movie however was an hour and forty-five minute exploration of a depressing and mundane existence. Kudos for the cinematography and for the untrained family that acted a dramatized version of their real lives. Kudos for the main character gaining common sense about what he was capable of doing given his physical condition and for his love and care for his sister and his fellow injured rodeo rider. He described himself in the movie not as a bronc rider but as a horse trainer. I hope the family's poverty and isolation does not prevent him from having an opportunity to do that.

As for the reviews that celebrated this as a peg in the takedown of macho culture, fine if one defines macho as brutalizing women and engaging with other men in bar fights. But masculine men can be loving and caring mates and fathers who should be celebrated and not pilloried in the seemingly growing trend to the asexualization of our society.