"The Mustang": review

"The Mustang" is a 2019 Belgian-French production set in the modern American West.  Directed by actress-turned-writer/director Laure de Claremont-Tonnerre (what a name!  Laura Clearmountain-Thunder!), "The Mustang" stars Matthias Schoenaerts, Jason Mitchell, Bruce Dern, Gideon Adlon, Connie Britton, and Josh Stewart.

We learn that wild mustangs still roam the Western plains, and many are rounded up by the government and trained by local inmates so the horses can be auctioned off.  The story focuses on one inmate named Roman Coleman (Schoenaerts), a large, brawny, taciturn man who has already served twelve years of a sentence for having violently cracked the skull of his girlfriend, leaving her brain-damaged and incapable of caring for herself.  Roman has spent several stints in solitary confinement; by his own reckoning, he doesn't get along with other people.  The prison psychiatrist (Britton) eventually gets Roman reintegrated into the regular prison population; he ends up as an awkward roommate of the unsavory Dan (Stewart), who immediately comes off as a shady character.  Roman has a pregnant, twenty-something daughter (Adlon) who hates him for what he did to her mother; she visits Roman on occasion, mainly to have him sign certain papers that allow her to get on with her life.

With the help of the psychiatrist, Roman is assigned to outdoors maintenance duty, but he becomes curious about the mustangs being taken in by the prison.  One mustang in particular, a very wild, angry one that's just been brought in, catches Roman's attention when he hears it kicking furiously at a stable door.  Noting his curiosity, old horse wrangler Myles (Dern) gives Roman a chance to join the horse-training team.  In twelve weeks, Roman must learn not only how to guide a horse around a corral, but also how to ride a horse in preparation for the auction, where inmates will ride the horses out for a crowd of bidders to see.  Fellow inmate Henry (Mitchell), a veteran cowboy, is assigned to help Roman learn the ropes.

The plot of "The Mustang" is fairly easy to predict at this point.  Roman connects with the captured mustang, whom he names Marquis (pronounced "Marcus" in the film), and the symbolism of a captured, angry horse bonding with a captured, angry inmate is obvious.  But despite presenting us with such on-the-nose imagery, "The Mustang" delves deeply into the inner lives of both Roman and Marquis, mainly through a show-don't tell narrative and loving cinematography.  Director Claremont-Tonnerre co-wrote the story, and it's clear she has a deep love of horses, and that this story was an important one for her to tell.  I don't know the real name of the horse playing Marquis, but I have to give the horse credit for being almost as fine an actor as his human associates.  The scene in which Roman and Marquis finally begin to bond is deeply touching:  Roman is at the point where he thinks Marquis is untrainable, and when he slumps down in despair, it's at that moment that Marquis quietly walks up behind Roman and lays his huge, equine head on Roman's shoulder.  It's a marvelous scene.

And overall, this is a marvelous film.  Simple, unpretentious, and of necessity minimalist because the story takes place inside a prison, "The Mustang" is a thoughtful exploration of one man's healing as he edges closer to the road to redemption.

ADDENDUM:  I saw the name "Schoenaerts" and thought it sounded familiar, and the actor's face looked vaguely familiar as well.  When I looked Schoenaerts up, I had an "Aha!" moment when I saw he had also played an important role in "The Danish Girl," a movie I'd reviewed several years ago.  He looked utterly different in that movie.  Schoenaerts, a Belgian, was raised speaking French and Dutch, and it's obvious he also speaks flawless English; for his role as Roman, he had to speak a rough-around-the-edges form of English used by hardened convicts, and he did so utterly convincingly.  Full props to Schoenaerts for disappearing into this role, which he absolutely owned.

Matthias Schoenaerts in "The Danish Girl" (L) and "The Mustang" (R)