Lean on Pete

Dir: Andrew Haigh

2018

*****

I’m embarrassed to admit it but ten minutes into Lean on Pete I wondered whether Andrew Haigh had lowered his standards to appeal more to a family audience. I’ve been a fan of Haigh’s since 2011’s woefully underrated Weekend, one of the best British film of 2011 in my opinion. His 2015 drama 45 Years was rightfully recognised as the masterpiece it is and when I heard the director was about to embark on a neo-western I was both intrigued and excited. However, the story just seemed to go through the motions. I thought that visually Haigh had advanced leaps and bounds but what I was watching was something I’d seen a million times before. The story follows Charley, a 15 year old who lives with his alcoholic father who is somewhat immature and treats Charley more like a friend than a son. Charlie Plummer plays Charlie with a wonderful subtle silence, saying a thousand words without uttering a single word. He’s clearly unlike his father and is searching for his own identity. He runs every night, not for the fitness aspect of it but out of curiosity and the sense of discovery. During one such run Charlie stops to catch his breath near a local stables. Del Montgomery (played by Steve Buscemi), a horse trainer, asks Charlie to lend him a hand lifting a heavy load and asks him if he wants a days work when he shows enthusiasm. Charley lies about his age and accepts the work and ends up working at the stable full time. He returns home each night with food shopping, happy that he is contributing, although his father shows concern. I thought I could predict the rest but I was totally wrong. Del Montgomery doesn’t turn into the mentor I thought he would, nor does Jockey Bonnie (Chloë Sevigny) who comes into the story later. While at the stables Charley becomes close to an aging racehorse called Lean on Pete and becomes concerned that Del will sell him to Mexican racers who will either race him to death or make glue out of him. He urges Del to enter him into more races, convinced that he’ll finally win. However, this isn’t Seabuscuit and Andrew Haigh works with Willy Vlautin’s novel quite cleverly to steer the viewer away from what they might expect. This is a realist film for dreamers. Suddenly what I thought was a ‘chosen one’ style story about overcoming adversity and winning against the odds became a very real story about a young man’s downward spiral. Charlie takes a wrong turn at a cross roads in his life and finds himself in a desperate situation. This imitates the lives of so many and the fact that it seems to come out of nowhere in the film mirrors the fact the many people often do not see their change in situation coming. People have aspirations, goals and wishes but all these can be crushed by a simple poor decision or a by powers out of your own control. I thought it was a sensitive story as well as a successful swipe at the X-Factor idea and the talent show ‘chosen one’ format. So many films aimed at youth are about overcoming adversity, and that is fine, but when the only goal seems to be money, fame and success the message becomes lost, samey and fictional. Anything these days that isn’t Disney (or Disney on steroids in recent years) is seen as dark, oppressive and somehow negative, and yet this is the perfect reflection of society – America especially – in this day and age. I would say that Lean on Pete is the first great American film – that is, uniquely American – in the last few years. It’s an emotionally driven story but without melodrama. Nothing here is spoon-fed, how you feel about it totally depends on your own level of empathy, but this is how it is. Charlie Plummer plays Charlie perfectly in that he doesn’t know how to express himself because he isn’t that sure how he feels anyway. There is nothing worse than a teen drama whereby a child delivers an adult-written line of dialogue that no child could ever understand and would never say. However, thanks to Plummer’s subtle performance we know exactly how he feels. Lost and quietly confused have to be two of the hardest emotions to portray and he delivers both perfectly. Steve Buscemi and Chloë Sevigny are perfect too, they are the sort of actors who pick roles based on quality, rather than to excel their own image. When their character need to step aside, they step aside. Charlie’s odyssey is the perfect modern metaphor of American life as it is in 2018. There is quite a lot of horror along the way and while the conclusion is far from many people’s idea of success or a fulfilling ending, it’s actually quite wonderful. I worry about the people who cannot see the magic here, whether they’ve lost the ability or because they never had it in the first place. For me Lean on Pete is the oil that cuts across the grease as far as modern cinema is concerned. The best thing about it is that it is for everyone. It’s not just for adults and it certainly doesn’t bog itself down by referring to itself as ‘young adult fiction’ or anything else as meaningless. Like I said, a slice of realism for dreamers, full of magic and harsh truths. One of the best films of 2018 and certainly in the top 100 for the decade.