Seabiscuit vs Bridget Jones's Diary

Seabiscuit is the tale of a beaten-down racehorse, and an even more beaten-down jockey, who lifted America’s spirits during the Great Depression and went on to become two of the greatest sports figures of the entire century.

Yeah, I know, I’ve never heard of them either. Damn public schools.

Seabiscuit, as far as I know, is the best movie ever with the word “biscuit” as part of the title. You can quote me on that.

Seabiscuit, like so many other movies, is based on a book I didn’t read. Since the movie isn’t subtitled “the companion to the hit book”, then I feel pretty safe in watching it without any prerequisite reading.

Seabiscuit, the horse, is too small to be a race horse. He’s got a bad leg, a bad temper, he eats too much and he’s mean to people and animals. At one point, I’m pretty sure he tosses a goat. Seabiscuit is going to be Gluebiscuit if he’s not careful. (I struggled with this one. Sea-jello? Marshmallow-biscuit?  See, nothing’s really funny. The point I’m making is that they’re going to kill this horse, see, and I wanted to be funny. Well look man, it’s not like I don’t have other stuff to do. If you don’t like it, then go read someone else’s comparison of Seabiscuit and Bridget Jones’s Diary. What’s that? Yeah, that’s what I thought.)  His jockey, Red, is too big to be a jockey. Despite being born into a life of luxury, he’s been essentially homeless most of the Depression, and is more comfortable sleeping in the stables than in a bed. Oh, and he’s blind in one eye after one too many late night boxing matches. There’s a cool scene in a brothel where Red can only see his prostitute once in a while.

Seabiscuit gets a pretty nice head start (are there going to be racing analogies throughout this thing? Jeez, let’s hope not.) with its amazing cast. Frankly, in my opinion, Jeff Bridges is enough. Start with Jeff Bridges and even the cheesiest movies (cough—KPAX—cough cough) will have moments of honestly and integrity. Bridges is Seabiscuit’s owner, a wealthy man who started in bicycles, moved on to cars and then doubled back to horses. Like most of the cast of Seabiscuit, he has sadness in his past, and develops a fatherly relationship with Red. Besides Bridges and Tobey Maguire, we’ve got Chris Cooper, William H. Macy and Elizabeth Banks, whom I’d not seen in a movie before but is strikingly Parker Posey-ish, and therefore just fine in my book.  Everyone’s great. I think this is Tobey Maguire’s most vital performance yet. He’s not as mumbly and introspective as he can be sometimes. There’s a nice scene when Bridges asks Maguire’s character, “Why are you so angry?” that informs the entire movie. Chris Cooper plays a drifter/horse whisperer, and is one of those proud, silent types that you always think you’ve pissed off, but then you think maybe he likes you so you try to joke around with him, and nope, he actually was pissed at you after all. I usually end up working with at least one person like that. William H. Macy plays a radio announcer named Tick-tock, who has a sound effect to punctuate every phrase. I’d like to add that they’re actual funny sound effects, and not the sort we’re treated to on the drive to work all over the country. Hi, yeah, I have a request, how about you shut up for two seconds and play a freakin’ song. That is still your job, isn’t it?

Seabiscuit is about men and horses, so inevitably there have been stories about guys crying in the theater. That’s what it takes, you know: horses. One of the major problems with Hollywood is they think men and women can’t relate to the same topics. Most moviegoers don’t think in terms of male (2 Fast 2 Furious) and female (Autumn in New York). We think in terms of good (keep reading) and bad (both those gender-pandering pieces of crap mentioned above). Even the poster for Seabiscuit is designed for guys. It’s all Horse Running! Mud Flying! Of course the movie itself is all about slow, peaceful images, like Jeff Bridges silently playing with his son’s tiny marble game, and Tobey Maguire nuzzling Seabiscuit nose-to-nose.

To be sure, there are racing scenes, amazing moments that put the viewer right in amongst the horses.  I liked how the jockeys taunted each other; some of them were downright mean.

Gary Ross, who wrote and directed Seabiscuit, distinguishes it from the scores of sports movies and animal movies by focusing so much on the times and setting of the movie that the Great Depression becomes a supporting character. The climate of the times is every bit as important as the actions of the characters. In fact, one seems completely impossible without the other. Without the devastation of the Depression, the characters of Seabiscuit would have carried on their incredibly entitled lives without problem, and Seabiscuit, well, life would have been shorter, to say the least. Throughout the film, we get moments of documentary style still photos from the Depression era while a narrator fills us in about Seabiscuit’s increasing presence in the world and…sniff…the hearts of the downtrodden. I know it sounds a little precious, and it is at times, but the cinematography is so striking, and the narrator has a pleasant voice, and well, it’s about a horse damn it. A sweet little awkward underdog horse who just wants to run one more time, so splint his foot and ring the bell.

Seabiscuit, for all his faults—his temper, his awkwardness, his size—ends up winning not in spite of his foibles, but because of them. Without that competition, especially from himself, he wouldn’t have tried so hard. He’s a winner, and he never needed to change at all; he’s fine just as he is. Remind you of anyone?

That’s right, that other championship racer…Bridget Jones.

Bridget Jones’s Diary is based on book of the same name. I didn’t read it, and you can’t make me.

There was a lot of controversy for a couple days about Renee Zellwegger being cast as Bridget, since a. Renee Zellwegger is not British, and b. Renee Zellwegger is normally all up on the Zone or Sugar-busters or whatever. She’s all Shelly Long-ish and Bridget is more Kirstie Alley-esque. But she packed on like twenty pounds and got all soft and round and sexy.  The myth is that Bridget Jones is fat. No, Bridget Jones is a wreck, and like lots of people out there, mistakenly thinks that the solution to her problems lies in losing ten pounds.

Bridget Jones is like the British child of George Costanza and Carrie Bradshaw.  She’s neurotic, out of shape, ill-mannered, addictive and needy. If there’s a right thing to say in any given situation, Bridget will think of it on the way home.

Luckily, Bridget’s played by an actor who actually seems to like her. Zellwegger has just about as good a non-British British accent as I could have wanted. She doesn’t do some sort of posh summer stock British, and she doesn’t go for over-exaggerated Monty Python style British either. She sounds like, well, if Renee Zellwegger were British. I especially like the inflections she turns once in a while, like when she pronounces “married couples” as “merry cuppos.” She won me over fairly early, at the beginning of the movie, when she’s lip-syncing to Celine Dion, and then air-drumming with a rolled-up magazine. Did I mention Bridget might just be the slightest bit pathetic?  When we first started seeing Renee Zellwegger in movies, it seemed like maybe she was sweet and funny, but in that blandly sweet and funny way that doesn’t risk offending anyone. Like those people who say things like “fudge” and “h-e-double-hockey-sticks”. She’s got an edge though, as we see over and over in Bridget Jones. Zellwegger seems completely at ease smoking, swearing and having email foreplay with her boss. She’s a trip. If she were really British, she’d be my favorite actor. See how big a jerk I am? Why do you put up with this?

Throughout Diary, Bridget finds herself in a series of situations, each one more embarrassing than the last, like when Bridget wears her gut-holding underwear and gets caught, or when she arrives at a Tarts and Vicars party, but is the only tart in attendance. Every romantic comedy convention is discarded immediately.  There’s no moment for Bridget to get all evening-gowned and wow everyone at a party. Instead, she makes a public spectacle of herself at least three times in the movie. The misunderstanding over another woman turns out not to be a misunderstanding at all, and when Bridget finally triumphs at work, it’s basically because she fell ass-first into it. She literally goes out for smokes and comes back with a job. Best of all is that when Bridget decides to take control of her life and get in shape and stop drinking and all that, it lasts about five minutes. Clean living isn’t Bridget’s style, and neither is planning. Something tells me she probably slacked off on the diary too, eventually setting it aside like so many Oprah books.

Bridget Jones’s Diary, of course, was marketed primarily to women. It has a girl’s name, followed by the word “diary”, for crying out loud, so what did you expect? What you might not realize about Bridget is that she swears like an Osbourne, dresses inappropriately at work and spends her evenings sloppy drunk. A lot. She’s right up your alley. Hell, chances are, she’s you.

At the end of Seabiscuit, we’re told, via narration, that not only did three sad people fix Seabiscuit, but that he fixed them right back. Or something. At the time, I got a little “oh hey, I just noticed this thing in both my eyes. I’ll get it with the neck of my shirt.” Now though, I realize it’s not about pulling yourself up and achieving whatever. It’s about losers finding each other and seeing that as parts of a whole, they’re not so bad after all. Tobey and Jeff and Chris Cooper found each other and Seabiscuit and well, hang on, I’m just gonna get this eye lash out with part of my sleeve. And the same goes for Bridget Jones. She could do a couple crunches, sure, or maybe drink less vodka, or watch her mouth. But what’s the point, when she’s got a group of friends who depend on her not changing? If Bridget succeeds, what happens to those losers? It’s not so much that she’s fine the way she is, it’s that we want to be fine the way we are too.  In other words, drink up. There’s a sequel, but I haven’t read it, and I’m not gonna. They want me to find out what happens, they gotta pack back on those twenty pounds of Zellwegger ass. A little tip from me? Make it thirty this time.

Seabiscuit: B+
Bridget Jones’ Diary: B+