It’s an ambitious project to make an animal the star of a film without overloading on the cheese factor. Steven Spielberg’s War Horse is sentimental, but it’s also touching and beautifully shot, in a grand, big-budget Hollywood way. Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) is a poor Devon farm boy whose drunkard father (Peter Mullan) sells his horse, Joey, to the cavalry when World War I breaks out. We follow the horse’s odyssey through dangerous terrain and various captors—as a transient roster of characters moves through, Albert and Joey keep what could be a disjointed story, not only cohesive, but captivating. From gruesome battle scenes to slapstick slips to heart-warming reunions, this film runs the gamut, and you can’t help but give in.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.