Story
Buck is a documentary that tells the story of Buck Brannaman (who appears in the movie). Buck is the man who inspired the Nicholas Evan’s novel The Horse Whisperer and the 1998 movie of the same name starring Robert Redford (who also appears in this movie). Buck is a horse trainer who spends nine months of each year travelling across America conducting clinics on ‘natural horsemanship’.
In the movie, Buck’s students bring unruly horses to Buck. Without whips or restraints, he transforms the horses into willing animals that do exactly what he tells them to do. The movie is as much about the people who bring their horses to Buck’s clinics as it is about the horses. As Buck puts it, ‘A lot of the time, rather than helping people with horse problems, I’m helping horses with people problems’.
The movie also tells us about Buck’s traumatic life as a young boy. Buck and his brother were systematically and violently abused by their father until the authorities discovered the abuse.
Themes
Child abuse; animal cruelty and suffering
Violence
This movie contains references to systematic and long-term physical abuse of children. It also shows brief images of violence to horses and images of real-life injuries, including some blood and gore. For example:
Sexual references
This movie has one low-level sexual reference. This is when Buck talks about watching a TV show. In the show, a woman talks about how the greatest aphrodisiac for women is watching their husbands use a vacuum cleaner.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
This movie has one scene that shows alcohol being served. There’s also one reference to drunkenness, when Buck talks about his father being drunk during Buck’s childhood.
Nudity and sexual activity
None of concern
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
The movie contains occasional low-level coarse language.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Buck is an inspiring and fascinating documentary, which is likely to interest a wide-ranging audience of older adolescents and adults. It would be difficult to be untouched by this man’s remarkable ability to communicate with horses, or his philosophy and outlook on life. But the movie is also confronting at times, with images and themes likely to disturb children and younger teenagers.
The movie has several important messages:
- You should never forget the bad things that happen to you in life, but you don’t have to live with the past.
- Learning about how to treat horses is also learning about how to treat other people.
- Fear isn’t respect – it’s just acceptance.
- Bribery doesn’t work – it just breeds contempt.
- ‘Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you might not like what you see.’
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include turning adversity to strength. Rather than being destroyed by his early suffering and abuse, Buck uses these experiences to understand, communicate with and train horses. He does this so well that he becomes a famous leader in the field of natural horsemanship.