Laure de
Clermont-Tonnerre – 2019 - France
If there’s a
greater actor in the world than Matthias Schoenaerts, I don’t know who it is. I
was so blown away by his performances in Bullhead and Rust and Bone
that I refused to believe he wasn’t really a monosyllabic brute until I saw him in interviews later, and then as a mannered, romantic landscape architect in A
Little Chaos. As hard as it is to believe, he may have topped himself yet
again with The Mustang. Schoenaerts plays Ronald Coleman, a convicted
murderer incarcerated in a Wyoming prison. One of the jobs available to the
inmates is to help a local elderly horse wrangler (Bruce Dern) training wild
stallions and preparing them for sale at auction. Ronald is skeptical at first
but it eventually gives him a sense of purpose. It sounds like a formula sentimental
issues movie, and it would be in the hands of weaker actors and
filmmakers. Schoenaerts avoids the
obvious emotional buttons for which anyone else would make a beeline. His
moments are earned and affecting because he understands that it’s more heart-wrenching
to see someone fighting emotion than swinging for the fences with blubbering
and shouting. The Mustang is everything you want in an independent
drama; it softens clichés with moments that feel real, and generates empathy
with characters you don’t expect to like.
No comments:
Post a Comment