robert redford is very good at playing characters who have incredible , god-given gifts , but are able to act like ordinary people . 
in " the natural " ( 1984 ) , he played the fallen angelic character of roy hobbs , the baseball player who was destined to be " the best there ever was , " but still acted like a humble farm boy . 
in " butch cassidy and the sundance kid " ( 1969 ) , he was the most dangerous shot in the west , yet he came off like a nothing more than a boyishly good-looking charmer . 
even in " indecent proposal " ( 1993 ) , where he played a man who was so good at making money that he believed he could buy love , redford was still able to exude an aura of shy decency , especially when reciting a tale of lost love . 
in his latest film , " the horse whisperer , " based on the best-selling novel by nicholas evans , redford again plays such a character . 
redford also directed the film although he swore up and down that he would never direct himself in a movie - i suppose the character of tom booker , a man who has the amazing gift of understanding and somehow communicating with horses , was just too good to pass up . 
despite his enormous and rare gift when it comes to training troubled horses ( a magazine article coins the phrase " horse whisperer " to describe his uncanny talent ) , booker sees himself as an everyday cattle rancher whose greatest fear is growing old and no longer having a purpose in life . 
booker's talents are taxed into service by annie maclean ( kristin scott thomas ) , a new york magazine editor whose daughter , grace ( scarlett johansson ) , was recently in a horrible accident . 
the accident , which is filmed with gut-wrenching horror , happens when grace and her best friend are out riding horses - an eighteen-wheeler kills grace's friend , severely wounds and traumatizes grace's horse , pilgrim , and causes grace to lose part of her right leg . 
annie believes that if pilgrim can be healed , grace will be healed as well , which leads her to booker . 
at first , she tries to get booker to come to new york to see the horse , but that doesn't work . 
instead , she packs up grace and pilgrim , leaves her husband , robert ( sam neill ) behind , and heads for the rolling hills of montana where booker runs a ranch with his brother , frank ( chris cooper ) , and his sister-in-law , diane ( dianne wiest ) . 
in many ways , the film is like a journey , both literally and symbolically . 
the move out west has always been a great american tradition of renewal , and it's hard not to see annie and grace's leaving manhattan for montana as a variation on the classic theme of city vs . country . 
in " the horse whisperer , " country is clearly the victor . 
the city is characterized by claustrophobia and unhappiness , and it is not until the characters arrive in the wide-open spaces of montana that grace's anger at being physically and emotionally crippled begins to dissipate , annie's controlling nature begins to relax , and pilgrim once again learns to trust people . 
redford is just as in love with the grand montana country in this film as he was when he directed " a river runs through it " six years ago . 
in many ways , " the horse whisperer " comes from the same poetic vein as " river , " and the movie could probably be a good fifteen minutes shorter if redford had decided to spend less camera-time on the grass and mountains . 
but then , that would ruin the magic . 
much of the film's photography is truly elegant , and it creates a palpable sense of the sheer expansiveness of the land . 
to further emphasize this , redford and cinematographer robert richardson ( " natural born killers , " " platoon " ) cheated a bit by shooting the beginning of the film - which takes place in new york - with mostly cold , harsh bluish filters and a more squarish 1 . 85 : 1 aspect ratio ; when the action shifts to montana , richardson switches to soft-focus and natural lighting , and the screen widens to a 2 . 35 : 1 aspect ratio . 
in terms of the story itself , " the horse whisperer " gives us the same romanticized view of adultery found in david lean's " a brief encounter " ( 1945 ) and clint eastwood's 1995 adaptation of robert james waller's " the bridges of madison county " ( richard lagravenese , co-screenwriter here also adapted " bridges " ) . 
although " the horse whisperer " has a strong romantic sensibility , i still find something oddly troubling about this kind of story . 
it seems to me that there should be some sympathy for the husband who's being left behind for this brief , heart-sweeping affair , but there rarely is . 
in " the horse whisperer , " the thankless role of being the fuddy-duddy husband falls to sam neill . 
he plays the character as a decent , hard-working man who is a good husband and father ; his only failure is that he loves his wife more than she loves him . 
he is at risk of losing annie to booker not because he did anything to drive her away , but simply because he happens to be a normal , fairly uninspiring man . 
there is one scene that is particularly telling of how the movie feels about each character . 
it shows booker and robert going into a horse pen - booker is dressed like a classic cowboy with hat and all , while robert looks somewhat frumpy and out-of-place in a baseball cap . 
as they enter the pen , booker assuredly swings over the fence , while robert hesitates , then opens the gate and , in a goofy moment , forgets to close it behind him . 
it's a small scene , but it clearly demonstrates the movie's thorough love of the booker character for his romantic roughness . 
after all , booker represents everything good about the city while robert represents everything banal and unnatural about it . 
the best scenes in " the horse whisperer " tend to involve not the building romance between booker and annie , but rather the healing process of grace and her horse . 
although booker's horse-training methods are mythical and unrealistic , the scenes with him and pilgrim are strangely mesmerizing . 
these are paralleled by the scenes between him and grace , some of which are humorous , and all of which are tender and true . 
at some point , i wished the movie would drop the whole romance angle and focus on grace more . 
nevertheless , redford is obviously a romantic at heart , and he brings a light touch to the erotic moments in the film . 
there are no dramatic sex scenes , but there is a moving scene when he and scott thomas are slow-dancing , always moving ever closer together , that is far more erotic than any scene of sweaty bodies grinding together . 
although the movie is longer than it should be and is essentially a melodramatic tearjerker with an unsatisfying conclusion that guarantees unhappiness for just about every character , there are enough moments like that which make " the horse whisperer " worth the price of admission .