All The Pretty Horses (2000)
Book cover, because the movie sucked.
All the Pretty Horses was one of the most challenging reads I’ve made it through. I would get to page 100 and get lost or start reading something else. It took me about 4 attempts and then I broke through that page 100 barrier. It turned out to be an incredibly rewarding read and made me a life-long Cormac McCarthy fan (currently, Half-Price Books has the 2010 printings of the “Border Trilogy”[of which this is the first part] for just less than $20. Of course Barnes & Noble has a buy 2 get the 3rd free on DVDs, meaning it might be time to fill some holes in my Criterion Collection. Oh, and I’d like to eat more than ramen and leftovers this week….so no more books). When I heard that Billy Bob Thornton was making a movie out of it, I was excited and nervous. I like Sling Blade. I felt that if Thornton could bring the same level of intimate intensity to acting of the movie and expand his visual style to something grander it would be a great movie. I was unfamiliar with Terrence Malick at the time, but that was exactly the style I was hoping for.
I hadn’t been able to talk anyone into reading the book (especially after what I affectionately refer to as “The Italo Calvino Incident“), but I could probably talk people into going to see the movie. Now, if the movie sucked, I would be tarred & feathered (this is where I remind you that I worked in a record/video store and we were very much like the jerks in High Fidelity), but if it was a good movie, then I would…I don’t know, get a cookie or something.
The movie was horrible. It tried hard to capture the poetry of the book, but it came off as boring navel-gazing. The acting was pretty poor. The prison fight scene, a highlight of the book, was flat and without any sense of danger. The score was weak. Penelope Cruz and Matt Damon were too odd a fit for the romance they were supposed to share. Damon, in general, was a poor choice for the character of Cole. Too Bostonian, not enough Texan.
I recommend the book. Seriously, any McCarthy really. As far as good McCarthy movies: The Road was an excellent adaptation of his work as well as No Country For Old Men, but stay away from this movie.
As a side note, there has been rumors for years of adaptations of Blood Meridian and Cities of the Plain. I hope that when either of these finally arrive they do justice to McCarthy.
