Lean on Pete

"You can’t get anywhere on your own."

2018 2h 1m EN

👍

6.9

SOLID

★6.9TMDB · 376

DramaAdventureWestern

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Charley Thompson, a teenager living with his single father, gets a summer job working for horse trainer Del Montgomery. Bonding with an aging racehorse named Lean on Pete, Charley is horrified to learn he is bound for slaughter, and so he steals the horse, and the duo embark on an odyssey across the new American frontier.

“You can’t get anywhere on your own.”

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Cast

Charlie Plummer
Charley
Amy Seimetz
Lynn
Travis Fimmel
Ray
Steve Buscemi
Del
Jason Beem
Race Announcer
Tolo Tuitele
Lynn's Husband
Ayanna Berkshire
Cop 1
Connor Brenes
Cop 2

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Andrew Haigh
Writers: Andrew Haigh, Dan Schaefer
Languages: English
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 30% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 8 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Andrew Haigh, shot by Magnus Nordenhof Jønck. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by James Edward Barker. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Jonathan Alberts shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Charlie Plummer and Amy Seimetz and Travis Fimmel carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "You can’t get anywhere on your own.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt5340300 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Andrew Haigh directs. Magnus Nordenhof Jønck behind the camera. James Edward Barker scores. Jonathan Alberts cuts. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Earned back only 30% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
2Released 8 years ago.
3Directed by Andrew Haigh, shot by Magnus Nordenhof Jønck. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by James Edward Barker. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Jonathan Alberts shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Charlie Plummer and Amy Seimetz and Travis Fimmel carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "You can’t get anywhere on your own.".
8IMDB entry: tt5340300 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 8 themes, including "horse race", "runaway", "portland, oregon", "horse".

The technical file

Cinematography: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck
Original score: James Edward Barker
Editing: Jonathan Alberts
Production design: Ryan Warren Smith
Costume design: Julie Carnahan
Makeup / hair: Eva Lohse
VFX supervisor: Jonathan Rawlinson
Sound: Per Boström
Stunt coordinator: Kent W. Luttrell
Runtime: 121 min · 2h 1m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $8,000,000
Box office: $2,400,000
Return: 30% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Lean on Pete (2018)

Also by

Andrew Haigh

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Stephen Campbell2019-04-14
★ 6/10
Decent enough, but not a patch on Haigh's previous work _I feel everything I do is related to that sense of loneliness and that longing to not be alone. I think all of us spend most of our time feeling alone and we find ways to disguise our loneliness - whether it's relationships, a job or whatever it is - because we know that our central state of being is probably to feel alone. For this story that's especially true: Charley spends a lot of time running away, he leaves the frame and disappears. I think we're constantly battling with loneliness, finding things that make us feel bet__ter, striving for things that we think are going to make us happy and then when they fail to do so, striving for the next thing to try and repeating the process over and over. It's just our basic biological need that keeps us going._ - Andrew Haigh; "Lean On Pete: In Conversation With Filmmaker Andrew Haigh"; Candid (May 5, 2018) 15-year-old Charley Thompson (Charlie Plummer) lives with his father, Ray (Travis Fimmel), who is drinking himself into an early grave. Finding work caring for an ageing racehorse named Lean on Pete, Charley is devastated when he learns that Pete's owner, Del Montgomery (Steve Buscemi), is planning to slaughter the animal. Determined to save his friend, Charley steals Pete, and the two set out on an odyssey across the modern American frontier. Fans of writer/director Andrew Haigh will know his unassailable talent for what one might label unsentimental emotionalism; his films deal with intensely emotional situations without lapsing into Speilbergian fawnishness. And, although compared to the excellent Weekend (2011), and the masterful 45 Years (2015), Lean on Pete is a touch melodramatic, Haigh's talent for allowing character and theme to rise organically to the surface through quiet moments of introspection is still very much to the fore. So why not a higher score? Adapted from Willy Vlautin's 2010 novel of the same name, the biggest problem with the film is that things are laid on too thick; Charley is very much a Job figure, and suffers such a litany of misfortunes that one fully expects him to be diagnosed with terminal cancer. Similarly, the pseudo-allegorical nature of the characters he encounters is too on-the-nose for the realistic milieu Haigh has crafted. Part state-of-the-nation address, part bildungsroman, it's worth a look, but is ultimately lacking a satisfying thematic through-line.

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