Dream Horse (2021) * *

Directed by:  Euros Lyn

Starring:  Toni Collette, Owen Teale, Damian Lewis

Movies about race horses tend to follow the same unwavering formula:  Down-on-his/her luck person buys the horse, the horse isn't fit for racing but the trainer "sees something in him" and trains the horse anyway, the horse has minimal success at first, but just as the horse begins to improve the poor animal suffers a life-threatening injury.   The horse then not only recovers but stuns doubters by being a better racer than before.   Horse wins the big race.   All is well.

Dream Horse follows the racehorse movie playbook step by step.   It is spirited and the people who entrust their life savings and faith in this horse are colorful, but let's face it:  We've seen this movie before.   There are no surprises and a modicum of suspense.   Dream Horse is as generic as its title.  Secretariat or Seabiscuit it ain't. 

Supermarket cashier and moonlighting bartender Jan (Collette) is bored with her humdrum life and her husband Brian (Teale).   She looks for something to look forward to every day, so she researches race horses after listening to bar patron Howard Davies (Lewis) tell his drinking buddies about the glory days of owning a race horse.   Howard, an accountant by day, nearly went bankrupt and lost his marriage when his last horse investment went belly-up, but he's willing to listen when Jan suggests members of the small Welsh town in which they reside pony up (no pun intended) the funds to buy a mare and breed her with a racehorse with pedigree.   Their horse, which they name Dream Alliance (a better name for the movie), is soon born and learns to race with help from a top breeder and trainer.

I did not exactly give away spoilers, since Dream Horse doesn't deviate from the racehorse movie formula one iota.   I suppose what sucks about horse racing is how the horse itself doesn't benefit from winning.   I'm sure the horse sees its owners jumping for joy when he wins, but he has no idea how he is carrying the burden of making his owners' lives meaningful and making them rich.   He can't figure out what the hubbub is about.   All he wants to do is run as fast as he can so the person riding him stops hitting him with a riding crop.   It doesn't sound like much of a life, even if he is fed extra hay or vegetables for winning the Kentucky Derby.  

Now, if a horse racing movie is ever made from the point of view of the horse, then maybe we might have something there.