By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
Cast: Matthias Schoenaerts, Jason Mitchell, Gideon Adlon, Connie Britton, Josh Stewart, Thomas Smitthle, Noel Gugliemi and Bruce Dern.
Rating: Very Good.
French filmmaker Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre makes her directorial debut with “The Mustang” a film that brings a very interesting subject and delivers impressive results.
Based on true events, the story centers in Roman Colman (Matthias Schoenaerts) a violent convict which life is going to change forever when he ends up participating in the Wild Mustang therapy program.
This will also represent an opportunity for Roman to both know and redeem himself as a human being and will also learn to cherish the moments that he lost before he was imprisoned.
With “The Mustang” Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre showed us a character with a lot of emotional and internal conflict like Roman Colman. You might think that he is kind of repressed with in a way he is but at the course of the film you understand why he is who he really is.
Clermont-Tonnere also showed us a world involving horses that we have never seen before and before I watch this film I had no idea of what the Wild Mustangs are and I love how Clermont-Tonnerre showed her here.
The screenplay also written by Clermont-Tonnerre, who she wrote it with Mona Fastvold and Brock Norman Brock is very original and I love seeing this kind of movies that involved an original concept and theme, in this case horses.
Matthias Schoenaerts as Roman Colman is really good in this film and he plays the character with so much realism and I´m happy to see him as the lead in the movie, since he has been known to portray supporting roles. Here he delivered and plays a character that on the course of the film you feel for him.
I was very impressed with Clermont-Tonnere´s filmmaking. Not only she directed her cast in a superb way, but the way how the film was shot is very interesting and I love the fact that showed us that world of the mustang horses, how they are breed and at the end of the day the program of rehabilitation.
The film by moments can be predictable but that didn´t matter to me and it´s so far one of the biggest surprises of this year.
If Clermont-Tonnere continues this path I believe that she will have an interesting career. This movie was premiered in this year´s Sundance Film Festival, where it received a huge ovation and I can understand why since it´s a very original concept and the execution was even better.
That being said I highly recommend “The Mustang” for the story, Clermont-Tonner´s directing and the performances, specially Matthias Schoenaerts.