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Review: The Horse Boy

A compelling real-life adventure
By GERALD PEARY  |  November 4, 2009
3.0 3.0 Stars

 

Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff seem the best of parents — concerned, loving, patient, intellectually enlightened — and yet they’re worn down by their four-year-old autistic son, Rowan, with his four-hour tantrums, his rejection of toilet training, his inability to answer to his name. But Rowan calms a bit sitting on a horse, and that brings us to the compelling center of this documentary.

Parents and child, accompanied by filmmaker Michel Orion Scott, fly off to Tibet, land of horses and epicenter of shamanic activity. Can Rowan be “civilized” and “socialized” by a combination of horseback riding and the hands-on of spiritual wise men, who intuit that his mom’s womb was filled with “black energy” from her manic-depressive gardener?

The Horse Boy is a nicely photographed real-life adventure, and with some wisdom about autism for everyone along the pathway.

Related: Review: The Black Balloon, Review: The Unmistaken Child, Review: Adam, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Culture and Lifestyle, Health and Fitness, Family,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY GERALD PEARY
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  •   REVIEW: THE HORSE BOY  |  November 04, 2009
    Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff seem the best of parents and yet they’re worn down by their four-year-old autistic son, Rowan, with his four-hour tantrums, his rejection of toilet training, his inability to answer to his name.
  •   REVIEW: EARTH DAYS  |  October 07, 2009
    Those who worry that the eco-movement seems incapable of getting beyond its white upper-middle-class base will be disturbed anew by Robert Stone’s Earth Days , where every talking head is a well-bred Caucasian.
  •   REYKJAVIK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2009  |  September 29, 2009
    How would the Reykjavik International Film Festival, which I was attending, September 17 to 27, be affected by the horrid downturn?
  •   REVIEW: AMREEKA  |  September 23, 2009
    In the finely sketched beginning chapters of Arab-American writer/director Cherien Dabis's feature debut, we share the frustrating, claustrophobic life of our heroine, Munah Farah.
  •   REVIEW: BIGGER THAN LIFE  |  September 16, 2009
    A year after directing Rebel Without a Cause (1955), rebel filmmaker Nicholas Ray came back with Bigger Than Life (1956).

 See all articles by: GERALD PEARY

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