The Rider

The Rider” is a rare and unique film (i.e. docudrama) based on the real life story of a young rodeo rider named Brady Jandreau. To understand the film properly, the viewer must know that in 2016 Brady was thrown from the horse he was riding and kicked in the head by its hoof. He had a metal plate inserted in his head and was told that he would never ride again. This real life drama was witnessed by filmmaker Chloe Zhao who at the time was on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation directing her film “Songs My Brothers Taught Me”.

Ms. Zhao then wrote and directed the story of Brady Jandreau’s ability to cope with and seek to override the debilitating disability he suffered in his rodeo mishap. What is so unique about this film is that, not only Brady, but his real life sister (mentally underdeveloped 15 year old Lily) and his father, Tim, non-actors all, play themselves in this deep and involved story of life in the mid-west and especially those career cowboys whose lives exist on horseback or bulls, depending on the rodeo event they are in. In addition to the Jandreaus, the film employs the friends of the family including Lane Scott, who plays himself, a rodeo rider severely injured in an automobile accident which not only ended his career but left him a quadrapalegic.

Brady Jandreau’s performance is outstanding and hard to reconcile with the fact that this non-actor, playing himself, could give such a meaningful portrayal of how a cowboy who knew only horseback riding can find his way back to adjust and survive with the difficult hand he was dealt.

Ms. Zhao’s sensitivity and skill is manifested, not only in the ability to elicit such beautiful performances from her novice cast but to capture the sunrises and sunsets of the Dakota territory where the movie and real life events actually occurred. I give this film 3 and ½ stars and urge that it be seen by all who can appreciate that truth can be much more awesome  and powerful than fiction.