A mournful, elegiac ode to the American Midwest, Chloé Zhao’s
“The Rider,” blends narrative and documentary as it observes the life of Brady
Blackburn (Brady Jandreau, playing a loosely fictionalized version of himself),
a rodeo rider recovering from a near-fatal head injury after being thrown from
a bull. His doctors warn him that continuing to ride might kill him, but the
rodeo is the one thing that gives his life meaning, and he can’t bring himself
to give it up.
Brady lives
on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation with his father (Tim Jandreau) and
autistic younger sister Lilly (Lilly Jandreau), who each exert pressures on him
in their own way. He’s protective and unyieldingly patient around Lilly; she
seems one of the few people he’s able to let his guard down around. Meanwhile,
his father pushes him to find a new way to make himself useful.
The effects
of Brady’s injury manifest in an unusual way: his hand tightens up
unpredictably, and he finds himself literally unable to let go of things. But
eventually he’s hired to break in a new horse, and there are lovely sequences
where Zhao lets us watch him work. We see his natural way with horses, and the
freedom he feels in the saddle.
Some of the
film’s most emotional scenes come during Brady’s visits with his best friend
Lane (Lane Scott), another rider left paralyzed and unable to speak after suffering
his own accident. Their scenes bring a piercing authenticity to a story about
the elemental conflict that arises when the very thing that makes a person who
they are might also be their undoing.
This article appears in May 30 – Jun 5, 2018.
