#leanonpete

Lean on Pete

Lean On Pete, 2018 • 9.2/10 • Re-Watch

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'Lean On Pete' is a mesmeric slow-burning coming of age melodrama that manages to avoid all the genre's typical trappings, and instead provides us with a fresh, inspiring movie, led by a brilliant Charlie Plummer, and backed up by a magnificent supporting cast.

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It's an odyssey of a 15-year-old boy named Charley who becomes attached to a doomed horse and undertakes a desperate quest for support in a cruel world that has suddenly left him all alone, a poor boy, without a memorable past or a foreseeable future. Throughout this superbly-written journey, Charley goes through a series of incidents that truly test his metal, and ultimately define who he will be, and each scenario really hits you!

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Andrew Haigh's unadorned style completely sinks viewers into the story and characters. There are no sweeping camera moves, no swelling strings to tell us how to feel or give us distance from Charley's struggles. In fact, there's barely any score at all, and it's still bloody magical because the film utilizes all other aspects to full effect, the cinematography is a prime example of this, every frame is pure cinematic beauty, and it draws you deeper into this traumatically beautiful story.

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Throughout, Plummer is mesmerizing, his sunken eyes, monotone voice and gaunt face telling of all the layers of hardships Charley is and has been forced to endure. The supporting cast; Travis Fimmel, Steve Buscemi, Steve Zahn and Chloë Sevigny all give impressively grounded performances. I've seen this film 4 times now, and it's beautiful in every sense of the word. Easily in my top 10 independent movies of all time.

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