Lean On Pete is a slow, steady movie which can feel like a chore to watch at times throughout its 2-hour runtime, but which leaves you thinking about its characters long afterwards. The first US feature by British writer-director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years) transposes his clear skill for intimate, thoughtful storytelling to the American Northwest, giving a great amount of depth to what could have been an incredibly cliched tale of a boy growing close to an animal.
The animal, in this case being the eponymous racehorse — an adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s 2010 novel, the movie is entirely from the POV of Charlie, an often overlooked and lonely teenager who decides to earn some extra scratch working for Del, a horse wrangler in Portland. After growing close to one of the older steeds, he becomes more and more worried about the idea of him being sold and killed.
I’ve never seen anything by Haigh before, but I hugely admired his restraint as a filmmaker — this is a quiet, still picture, with discreet classical cinematography that allows the performances to shine through. And man, what performances! Steve Buscemi is fantastic as usual as Del — not unkind, but harsh, grumpy, and clearly not the father figure Charlie is looking for — while Chloë Sevigny puts in an unfortunately brief turn as jockey Bonnie. But the real star here is Charlie Plummer as Charley, in a wonderfully subdued performance that lets the audience fully see the character’s reserved nature — as well as the smaller moments of joy — in every scene. There’s a lot more layers to the script than your usual “dispirited teen” — it’s a tough role for a young actor to play, but Plummer proves that in a just world he would have a long career ahead of him.
Haigh’s screenplay shows love and care towards every single character — even the ones with the smallest appearances never feel tossed-off or trite. So many characters who could be stock cliches — the moody kid, the deadbeat dad, the tetchy boss — are fleshed-out beautifully. The writing shows a keen eye for realism, with absolutely no overwrought scenes of lines of dialogue, although the pacing is sometimes a little languid and the story doesn’t go anywhere many movies haven’t already done before.
Almost everything about Lean On Pete is a great success, especially the down-to-earth focus on interesting characters, yet I never felt fully passionate about it. I can easily recommend it, yet overall it didn’t truly jump out at me. Still, I’m very happy Haigh is out there making down-to-earth, undramatised pieces such as this. Time to go back and watch his previous work, I think.
