SECRETARIAT

“SECRETARIAT” (Diane Lane & John Malkovich)

I was going to like this movie no-matter-what. I was on the verge of turning 18 in May of 1973 when Secretariat began his historic run to the Triple Crown & had been a horse racing fan for a little over a year. What has bothered me about other reviews I have read has been that they tell the reader in detail ‘how’ he did it (& no, it wasn’t ‘Impossible’ as the ad campaign emphasizes because he DID IT, you morons) Like everyone planning to see this movie was alive & cognizant in 1973 & knows all the details of Secretariat’s amazing feat. True, I knew & it didn’t bother me ‘BECAUSE’ I witnessed it as it happened – what Secretariat did in the Belmont was, to this writer, the most incredible athletic feat I have ever seen in my lifetime & I’m relatively sure I’ll never see anything close to topping it. That was all that needed to be revealed to those who only knew the name ‘Secretariat’ was one of the most beloved in all horseracing.
To the movie itself – I was apprehensive about 2 things; it being a ‘Disney’ production; and the fact that John Malkovich would be acting in a ‘Disney’ production (The 2 just didn’t seem to go hand-in-hand, if you know what I mean)
Malkovich playing disagreeable trainer Lucien Laurin would seem to be a good fit in an R-Rated version, but ‘Disney’? John pulls it off though, he is the obnoxious, bull headed, do it my way or the highway French Canadian trainer without resorting to colorful curse words & phrases. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been a better film with them, but Malkovich’s performance almost makes you certain that he did drop several expletives during the film.
Pretty much everyone else is cookie-cutter characterizations & that suits this story just fine – the stars are the horse & the owner & in that this movie hits the mark to perfection.
Diane Lane as Penny Tweedy should get an Oscar nomination – Not that she showed outstanding acting abilities but because she ‘added’ to the story instead of detracting from it by being the ‘simple homemaker from Colorado who takes over her dad’s horse breeding farm once her mother passes away & dad begins to lose control of his mental faculties’. Even though I thought the film should have been called “The Penny Chenery Tweedy Story” instead of “Secretariat” for the first hour or so – Once the gates open for the Kentucky Derby & Secretariat ‘does what he was born to do’ the film will bring back grand memories for all of those who witnessed it originally & hopefully for those who weren’t around, they’ll get an idea as to what a marvelous experience it was.
‘Big Red’ wasn’t ‘just another racehorse’ in the same sense that Muhammad Ali wasn’t ‘just another boxer’ – when they say in the movie that Secretariat is ‘posing’ for photos, that isn’t made up – that’s exactly what he would do. Other horses would trudge out onto the race track – Secretariat ‘strutted’ onto the track with his head up high & ears pricked.
Don’t be too quick to dismiss people who say, “Secretariat KNEW what the Triple Crown was - & he KNEW how important winning the Belmont Stakes was. I believe he did. I also believe he is the only horse to EVER know those things, so I’m not just some horse lover that thinks they’re ‘special’ animals – just THIS ONE was.
And the irony of it all is that I have no interest in horseracing anymore. Haven’t for many, many years, though I spent a great deal of my late teens & early twenties at Longacres (Where I witnessed the Belmont in 1973)
There were a few instances that soured me on the sport of kings, but I believe one of the reasons I stopped attending the races is due to the fact that I knew I had seen the greatest horse run the greatest race of all time and there was nowhere to go but downhill from there. And the one thing that makes this film spectacular are the recreation of those races, especially the Belmont – it was eerily similar to what was going on in the lower clubhouse at Longacres as everyone crowded around the television sets to witness history. The comments from the crowd in the movie were the same that were made in the clubhouse. When the crowd went silent in the movie & jaws began dropping open; ditto the clubhouse. Jaws dropped. Followed by tears of joy. And guttural screams that one emits when one has witnessed something miraculous. It was one of the most memorable days of my life – and trust me, THAT horse knew what he was capable of doing. And he did it. Impossible? No. Amazing. Incredible. Unbelievable. Insurmountable. UNFORGETTABLE? Indubitably.