It came out at the same time as a similar film starring Colin Firth and was somewhat overlooked because of it. Starring Jack O’Connell who was a patron of our local indie cinema and written by the author of Seabiscuit. Now, whatever anyone thinks of horse racing Seabiscuit isn’t just a great book about sport but imo a truly great social history book. It’s about a small broken down horse who lifted the spirit of America during the depression. Trained by a down and out trainer and owned by a man who had just suffered a great personal tragedy, they all somehow healed each other. His rise to fame would, if it was fiction, be too fantastical to be believeable. As his new trainer said ‘he just needs to learn how to be a horse again’. Laura Hillenbrand who wrote both books suffers from ME and writes from her bed and interviews people by phone so she too knows about hardship and survival. I can read Seabiscuit over and over again as it’s beautifully written but must admit to buying Unbroken and struggling to read it. The film, which we saw at the cinema with Jack introducing it is excellent; far better than the Colin Firth film which, even given the bleakness of their subject matter is lightweight by comparison.
