Review of War Horse (2011) by Byron B — 24 May 2013

This movie surely tugs at the heart strings. It is old-fashioned and epic. It starts as an underdog story when Albert Narracott (Irvine) raises a colt he names Joey. With the horse working against its skills they save the family farm for a time.

Mr. and Mrs. Narracott (Mullan and Watson) are country folk who do what they must when faced with hard times. Joey is sold into the British cavalry when WWI begins and becomes Captain Nicholls' (Hiddleston) mount.

Benedict Cumberbatch as another British officer briefly shines alongside Hiddleston. The story and the characters really pick up as we follow Joey through the war. He must learn to adapt to so many different situations as he changes hands from owner to owner.

Niels Arestrup and Celine Buckens, as a German Grandfather and Granddaughter trying to maintain a peaceful life on their farm, add such loving beauty to a too short portion of Joey's life. There are bits of humor like Joey's refusal to jump.

The men in both armies who care for the horses are often shown to be the most humane amidst so much tragedy and violence. The performances of the horses who play Joey (I don't know for a fact, but I assume there were multiple horses) are amazing at bringing out emotion.

There is a particularly painful scene in no-man's-land that is capped wonderfully with the anti-war sentiment of one English soldier and one German soldier being civil and working together. Eventually a few years have gone by and Albert is old enough to have enlisted.

He hopes to still find Joey. We, the audience, may be skeptical of the fact that Joey has survived and returns to such a parallel path as his first master, but it is uplifting. The story's episodic nature doesn't allow you to get too close to any one of the human characters, but of course this is the horse's story.

The puppetry work that creates life-sized horses in the stage production is marvelous, however the storytelling is not as strong as here in Spielberg's vision.