Dream Horse Review

The story of the horse Dream Alliance was an inspiring one because it is about a working-class syndicate breeding and own a winning racehorse. It serves as the basis for the British comedy-drama Dream Horse.

Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) is a shop worker and bartender in the Welsh Valleys. She has experience breeding animals like racing pigeons. When Jan comes into contact with Howard Davies (Damian Lewis), a tax advisor who has experience with a horse racing syndicate she decides to form her own syndicate in the hope they can breed their own racehorse. But the syndicate faces various challenges like a snotty racing establishment and divisions between the syndicate members.

Dream Horse is the latest example of a safe, crowd-pleasing film for middle-class British audiences. Dream Horse follows films like Fisherman’s Friends and Military Wives because they were all based on inspiring true stories. Dream Horse’s big difference was it’s a sports film instead of being focused on music.

Whilst Fisherman’s Friends and Military Wives were based on true stories there were heavily fictionalised. Dream Horse stuck closer to the facts. There was some dramatic license but many of the events in the film matched Dream Alliance’s Wikipedia page and the History vs Hollywood article confirmed it.

The story Dream Alliance was a natural fit for a film. It had a double unexpected narrative. The first was the unlikely circumstances of Dream Alliance and the Welsh community getting into horse racing, the second was Dream Alliance coming back from a serious injury. Dream Horse was the horse racing version of Rocky because it was both a rags-to-riches story and a story about unlikely sporting success. The horse racing scenes were well done because there were lots of close-ups of the horses and the jumps. Horse racing is a naturally cinematic sport.

Despite Dream Horse being based on real events some of its major plot points come across as predictable and cliché. This ended up taking away a lot of the tension.

The setting in the Welsh Valleys allowed for the film to address the class divide. The syndicate was made up of shopworkers, retirees, drivers, and butchers and they stood out amongst the elite world of horse racing. Jan was nearly dismissed by the horse trainer Phillip Hobbs (Nicholas Farrell) and was looked down upon by other owners like Lord Avery (Peter Davison). It led to Dream Alliance being underestimated. Some of the characters even made statements about the elites committing ‘legalised theft.’

Dream Horse was a proudly Welsh film. It was directed by Euros Lyn, a TV director who has worked on shows like Doctor Who, Black Mirror, and Broadchurch, the film was mostly shot in Wales and many members of the cast were Welsh. The soundtrack was filled with Welsh artists like Tom Jones and Maniac Street Preachers. Even though I’m an Englishman I couldn’t help but feel roused by Katherine Jenkins and various characters singing the Welsh national anthem.

Dream Horse does have a fine cast. Toni Collette and Damien Lewis were the big draws and Collette’s character was the heart of the film. Collette’s character drove the plot because she was the one who got the idea to start a syndicate and get the various people together. Yet she was emotionally invested: she treated the horse almost like he was her child. Her decisions were not just motivated by money.

Collette worked well with Owen Teale (best known for playing Alliser Thorne in Game of Thrones), who played her husband. They were stuck in a rut before Jan got the horse and he also got invested in the endeavour. Teale acted as Collette’s rock.

However, the rest of the cast was one-note. Karl Johnson’s Kerby was a drunkard who was the comic relief and served as the butt of the joke. Maureen (Siân Phillips) was a retiree whose character traits were she liked teacakes and really wanting to meet Claire Blading. Characters like Goose (Darren Evans) and Peter (Asheq Akhtar) were pretty much background characters who didn’t do much in the film.

Dream Horse was formulaic and predictable, but it did its job as a feel-good, inspiring film. The sports narrative will help Dream Horse appeal beyond the grey audience.