Film Review - Dream Horse (2020)

When it comes to stories of triumph over adversity, you can always trust the world of sport to come up with the goods. Horse racing in particular. And, in the case of an unlikely winner called Dream Alliance, it’s a story making its second appearance on the big screen this week. 2015 saw its first outing as a documentary called Dark Horse, winning the audience award at that year’s Sundance. Now it’s back, this time as Dream Horse, a feel good film which could lift more than a few spirits.

The story remains more or less the same. In the run-down former pit village of Cefn Fforest, Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) juggles two jobs to keep her and husband Brian (Owen Teale) afloat – during the day at the Co-Op and in the evenings behind the bar at the local social club. She has little to look forward to, until one evening she overhears a conversation involving accountant Howard Davies (Damian Lewis) about a racing syndicate he was once involved with. It sparks off an idea and, having persuaded a group of friends and customers to chip in every week, they set out to breed a racehorse. The brood mare they buy on the cheap produces a foal, whose name becomes Dream Alliance and, although a top trainer doesn’t expect much of the animal, it turns out to be something of a streetfighter and starts to bring in results.

It’s a story with plenty of human interest – in fact, while the horse proves to be a winner, despite being raised on an allotment, the heart of the film lies with the people, some closer to caricatures than others. Racing scenes aside, this is more about hope and bringing a community together than about the sport of kings. Both Jan and the village have fond memories of past glories but now the place seems to have given up, just like her husband. But she hasn’t and it’s her passion and determination that drives the group and brings everybody together. As Howard points out, the whole enterprise is “about something much more important than just money.”

There is some artistic licence, inevitably, so there’s a sense of the film having been Hollywoodised, even though it’s funded by the BFI and Film4, among others. Howard is given a domestic storyline about near bankruptcy that almost wrecks his marriage, but it all ties neatly into the main theme of having something to live for. And, while there are attempts at humour, most of fails to raise much more than a smile, although Dream Alliance’s ultimate triumph after his career nearly comes to a halt will produce a prickle in your eyes. The fact that we know the outcome makes no difference to that. At the centre is Collette, with a grounded performance and a more than passable attempt at a Welsh accent. Damian Lewis is suitably charming as Howard while Teale, with his beard and distinctive teeth, is almost unrecognisable from Line Of Duty, but appealing as what his parents-in-law describe as “a lump” who is a decent man who’s just lost hope.

Dream Horse doesn’t aspire to be anything more than what it is – a pleasant piece of feel good entertainment with its heart in the right place. It’s not especially outstanding, but for anybody looking to have their spirits raised after the stresses of this year, it will do the job perfectly well. Not so much a winner, more of an also-ran.