In a drama filmed among real-life horse racing professionals, Clifton Collins Jr. portrays a middle-aged rider facing harsh realities, and Molly Parker is the trainer he has worked with for years.
Bets against all odds and the hope of a last chance – these are the dreams that drive horse racing movies, even if the weather is noir-dark (The kill) or wellness stimulant (Seabiscuit) Jockey fits perfectly into this lineage, but what sets it apart is its focus on the working class realities of pilots, grooms and coaches who travel the smaller circuits, away from the glamor and money of the Triple Crown. Writer and director Clint Bentley is the son of a jockey, and his sensitivity to the environment and its inhabitants informs all aspects of the intimate drama. Like two veterans in search of potential discoveries in middle age, Clifton Collins Jr. and Molly Parker present well-tempered curves, with excellent support from Moises Arias in the role of a rookie with a sorry look.
The races themselves are the backdrop for the longings, setbacks and triumphs of this trio; it is already more than half of the film that we hear the bugle call to post. Bentley and his filmmaker and co-writer partner, Greg Kwedar (his previous collaborations include Transpecos, with Kwedar in charge), they care about the professional workers who populate the so-called bottom of the track: stables, changing rooms, cafeterias and other shared spaces where the jockeys train and wait to shoot the shit.
In recent years, horse deaths have tarnished the sport’s reputation, a reality that is not touched on in this story on a modest scale, with its narrow and winning focus and character-driven 70s sensibility. Chosen by Sony Pictures Classics on the eve of its Sundance debut, Jockey he could have a good season, connecting with audiences who appreciate stories of the oppressed and modest films.
The circumscribed world to which Collins’ Jackson and Parker Ruth belong is an itinerant subculture not unlike that of carnies, making its way around the type of regional racing circuits that are not shown on television networks. Set on a track from the past, but still active, the film was shot at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, giving it a sense of place as strong as its understanding of the characters’ camaraderie (and which brings to mind Jaimy Gordon’s novel Lord of doom) It is appropriate that many scenes take place at dawn or dusk. The light from the southwest of these intermediate hours, expressively captured by the sensitive lenses of Adolpho Veloso, highlights the painful sensation of transition for its central characters. (The soundtrack by Bryce Dessner and Aaron Dessner at The National deepens the poignancy.)
For jockey Jackson and Ruth, the horse trainer he has worked with for years, horses are everything they know and care about. Even so, the work has become routine and it has been a while since they felt a real fire under them. The missing spark arrives in the form of a mare that Ruth can buy for a pittance because she is the only one who sees the animal’s potential. Jackson also recognizes a winner – “a swan with teeth”, he calls her, the kind of champion he never thought would be worth riding.
Ruth’s faith in him causes both fear and excitement. Jackson has done his best to hide and avoid dealing with a worrying tremor in his hand. Getting in shape for the mare’s first run, he goes to the limit, increasingly aware of his limitations and the painful reality that his body is breaking. This awareness increases after his good friend and fellow jockey Leo suffers a debilitating injury during a race. Leo is played, with a penetrating effect, by Logan Cormier, one of the many real jockeys in the cast, which also includes grooms, coaches and other real racing teams. During Jackson’s visit to Leo at the hospital, they talk about things that few people discuss, even with those closest to them – death, for a start, and their place in the hierarchy. “We are expendable,” insists Leo.
In another memorable and revealing scene, Jackson participates in a kind of support group (known as “Jockey Church” by filmmakers). Real jockeys exchange their litany of injuries and lament the fragile financial safety nets. Sitting between them, Collins listens and jokes, and the film transcends the division between professional and non-professional actors, achieving the kind of perfect fusion of narrative and documentary that Nomadland tries, but only succeeds sporadically.
To complicate and enrich Jackson’s newfound hope, is his new friendship with Gabriel (Arias), a young jockey who is following Jackson on the circuit and, when confronted about it by the older man, claims to be his son. In Collins’ perfectly calibrated and fully organic performance, Jackson’s conflicted reaction appears on his face in the first seconds after receiving the news. Even when he rejects Gabriel’s claim, it is clear that he is weighing the possibility and the void that it can fill. At some level, Jackson knows that his powers are waning and his racing days may be numbered, and by leaps and bounds he embraces the opportunity to pass on what he has learned, to be important to someone.
Their efforts are received with moving gratitude. Arias puts a lot of emotion in Gabriel’s silences, in his arrogant outbursts and, especially, in the moments when the young man delights in Jackson’s guidance. Whatever their characters’ true connection, Collins and Arias effortlessly signal, beneath all the inarticulate awkwardness, the yearnings of two men who have no father in different ways.
The relationship between Jackson and Ruth may lack this particularly charged angle, but it is no less complex, and the interaction of Collins and Parker can be breathtaking in their spontaneity, conveying an abbreviation and informality established over decades. The jockey and coach share the weight of middle age with their ticking, but also their sense of possibility and rebirth. After a successful first wave with Ruth’s horse, the nightly celebration of drunks, some improvised, is the highlight of the film.
Collins, who worked with Kwedar and Bentley in Transpecos, is a revelation as a working class athlete who still manages to cut a young silhouette even looking at mortality. In every look, Collins conveys the professional pride of the man and his growing vulnerability. Parker, an actor of remarkable reach, instills in Ruth his love for horse racing, his self-protective intelligence and his awakening to the chance to assert his own claim, to break his usual role as an intermediary between jockeys and high-powered owners.
The budget limitations of well-filmed production are evident only in the two race scenes in the film, which do not show the races themselves. In each case, Bentley keeps his focus firmly on Collins’ face, a device that punches the first time, but does not entirely prevent self-awareness the second time. Still, this second instance is culminated in a scene that captures not only the low-powered environment of the setting, but an epiphany for Jackson. Somewhere between arrogance and selflessness, win and lose, Jockey takes the final stretch.
Location: Sundance Film Festival (US Dramatic Competition)
Production companies: Marfa Peach Co., Contrast Films
Cast: Clifton Collins Jr., Moises Arias, Molly Parker, Logan Cormier, Colleen Hartnett
Director: Clint Bentley
Screenwriters: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar
Developer: Nancy Schafer
Executive producers: Larry Kalas, Larry Kelly, Linda and Jon Halbert, Cheryl and Walt Penn, Genevieve and Mark Crozier, Cindy and John Greenwood, Ann Grimes and Jay Old, Benjamin Fuqua and Jordy Wax, Clifton Collins Jr.
Director of photography: Adolpho Veloso
Production designer: Gui Marini
Costume Designer: Jessica Wenger
Publisher: Parker Laramie
Music: Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner
94 minutes