Dream Horse

I had the chance to see Dream Horse with a group of my students (and Sean) last year at the Sundance Film Festival and we all loved this inspiring true story!  I saw it again last night now that it is in wide release and I had just as many goosebumps as I did during my first viewing.  Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) lives in an economically depressed mining village in Wales with her unemployed and unmotivated husband Brian (Owen Teale).  She works as a checker at a co-op during the day and as a barmaid at the local pub in the evening as well as caring for her aging parents.  She feels that her life has become stagnant and yearns for a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  One night at the pub she overhears Howard Davies (Damian Lewis) brag about owning a winning racehorse with a syndicate of investors (he fails to mention that this venture nearly bankrupted him) and decides that she wants to own a racehorse.  She uses her savings to buy a bad-tempered mare who came in last in every race she ran and enlists Howard's help in recruiting a group of friends, including the town drunk (Karl Johnson) and a lonely widow (Sian Phillips), to form her own syndicate to pay the stud fee of a champion.  They name the resulting foal Dream Alliance and raise him on their small allotment in the village.  Philip Hobbs (Nicholas Farrell), a well-known trainer in England, decides to work with Dream because he thinks the horse has spirit but he doesn't have much hope for his prospects.  Nonetheless, Hobbs enters Dream in a local race and the syndicate is elated when he comes from behind to win.  As Dream wins more and more races against all odds, he becomes a symbol of hope for Jan, Brian, Howard, and the entire village.  This is a stand-up-and-cheer movie about doing whatever it takes to achieve a dream and I found it to be incredibly moving even though I knew the outcome!  The racing sequences are exhilarating but my favorite moments are when the ragtag group of misfits in the syndicate watch Dream's first race in the owners' box with the other wealthy and aristocratic owners (it is hilarious) and when the entire village welcomes the syndicate home with a victory parade.  I highly recommend this feel-good movie (stay through the credits to see the actors and their real-life counterparts singing in the pub).

Note:  This story is also the subject of fabulous documentary called Dark Horse.  I recommend it as well.