The Mustang

Movie
Original title	The Mustang
Country of production	France , USA
original language	English
Publishing year	2019
Rod
Director	Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
script	Brock Norman Brock , ; Mona Fastvold , ; Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
production	Alain Goldman
music	Jed Kurzel
camera	Ruben Impens
occupation
	Matthias Schoenaerts : Roman Coleman; Connie Britton : Psychologist; Bruce Dern : Myles; Josh Stewart : Dan; Jason Mitchell : Henry; Gideon Adlon : Martha;

The Mustang is a film drama by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre , which premiered on January 31, 2019 as part of the Sundance Film Festival .

action

The extremely violent inmate Roman Coleman has just been transferred from a maximum security prison to a prison in the Nevada desert. This prison participates in a program run by the Bureau of Land Management in which wild horses are captured, tamed by inmates and then auctioned. Here he gets the chance to take part in a rehabilitation program that involves taming wild mustangs. He is taken under his wing by an inmate named Henry who has some experience with the exercise program. This is directed by Myles, who often takes Roman harder than the other prisoners. Roman is assigned a difficult case because the Mustang Marquis is difficult to control and aggressive - like himself. Henry explains to him that he must first learn to control himself before he can control the horse.

One day Roman receives a visit from his pregnant daughter, whom he has not seen for many years. All she needs is a signature from him that allows her to sell the house that her grandmother left them. Every time Roman has a visitor, he is more communicative than before.

production

Rod

The film is the feature film debut of the French actress and short film director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre . She developed the film project as part of the Sundance Institute's 2015 January Screenwriters Lab. To this end, she revised her short film Rabbit from 2014, in which an imprisoned woman receives a rabbit as a therapy animal. De Clermont-Tonnerre expanded the basic story in The Mustang by choosing a horse, an animal that is firmly anchored in American mythology.

Cast and filming

A participant in the Horse and Burro Training Program at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center Carson City, where the film was shot

The Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts took on the lead role of the convicted violent criminal and program participant Roman Coleman. Connie Britton plays a prison psychologist, Bruce Dern plays the Mustang Training Program director, Myles. The young actress Gideon Adlon took on the role of Roman's daughter. Josh Stewart and Jason Mitchell can also be seen in other roles .

De Clermont-Tonnerre had started her investigation four years before the film premiered at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center. There the project came about visually: "I loved this place because I could feel the narrative and visual contrast here, and that was very important for the film. I liked how this prison was in the rocky mountains of Nevada and how they each were Hour changed their colors ", so the director. She came to this place several times to explore and delve into the characters and the story. Despite initial problems, she was finally allowed to shoot her film in this prison in Nevada. The special thing about the location was that next to the active prison there was a new, abandoned prison, which gave her complete freedom to film and dress the interiors as we thought appropriate. Ruben Impens acted as cameraman .

Film music and publication

Jed Kurzel composed the film music . The soundtrack, which comprises a total of eight pieces of music, was released for download on March 15, 2019 by Back Lot Music.

Focus Features secured the rights to the film at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2017 . The first trailer was presented in December 2018. The film was shown for the first time on January 31, 2019 as part of the Sundance Film Festival and was released in selected US cinemas on March 15, 2019. The cinema release in France was on June 19, 2019.

reception

Age ratings and reviews

In the USA, the film received an R rating from the MPAA , which corresponds to a rating of 17 and over.

The film has so far received the approval of 94 percent of all Rotten Tomatoes critics and achieved an average rating of 7.5 out of a possible 10 points.

Actor Matthias Schoenaerts at a screening of the film in Ghent

David Ehrlich of IndieWire explains that The Mustang is much stronger at the beginning and at the end, at the extremes of its emotions, than in between. The first scene between Roman and the horse, which he later calls the Marquis, is particularly powerful and almost feels like an homage to the Jurassic Park opening scene , as the stallion is stuck in a dark enclosure and serious about anyone who approached him Has done harm. Ehrlich describes The Mustang as a suspenseful prison drama that comes along in the guise of a classic western. Though some horses could not be broken, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre's debut film gave the feeling that even men who are unforgivably sinful can be repaired.

Perri Nemiroff of Collider writes that the film is driven by the care and sensitivity of Clermont-Tonnerre and a truly phenomenal performance by Matthias Schoenaerts . The film fascinates emotionally from the moment Roman meets the horse for the first time: "Similar to Roman, Marquis is locked in, angry and violent and the challenge is for the two to trust each other." The camera also gives the film a naturalistic atmosphere that increases the experience tenfold: "The way in which Roman isolates certain scenes shows how he feels and reflects his ups and downs throughout the story." The film is no excuse for Roman's crimes, but the program he takes part in challenges him to be a better person, according to Nemiroff.

In a review by The Filmstage , Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, who wrote the screenplay with Mona Fastvold and Brock Norman Brock , appears to have an incredibly high level of trust in her leading actor. Schoenaerts doesn't have many lines of dialogue, and as Roman's relationship with the Mustang grows, you can see the change in his face.

Owen Gleiberman from Variety writes that Schoenaerts looks like a lobotomized version of Dwayne Johnson and repeatedly urges the viewer to look for a soul inside. Gleiberman sums it up: "The film is less about a convict who becomes a horse whisperer than a horse who becomes a convict whisperer ."