The night before watching Dreamer, I had a conversation with a classmate who said it was a dream of theirs to become a movie producer. “Dream”, I said. “Sometimes those are the best goals to have.” Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, as the persistence of its title suggests, is something old, mixed with a little bit of something new. The most important thing to remember in approaching a film like this is that despite the fact that it may have been inspired by a true story, it’s not the content that is particularly important because the content is old hat. What is important is that magical way in which some actors can simply drop into a tired narrative and make it fresh with their own unique personalities and emotional cues. It’s the kind of film that presents belief in the face of defeat, and although many other underdog stories do that as well, we aren’t talking about them. You won’t see Dreamer because you are craving something new; rather, you want to see the same old thing done well.

Kurt Russell plays Ben Crane and Dakota Fanning plays his daughter Cale. Ben is a professional horse trainer who apparently has the only barn in Kentucky that doesn’t have a horse in it. After a disastrous race in which Ben tells his boss Palmer (David Morse) not to race a horse named Sonja, an accident happens and Ben goes home with six thousand dollars, a broken horse which is as good as dead, and no job.

There is another Crane character named Pop, Ben’s father played by Kris Kristofferson, who doesn’t communicate much with Ben and ads a layer of emotional complexity to the narrative. Ben still resents him for giving up training horses and forcing him to sell all of the farmland but that which their houses sit upon, killing his dreams of one day achieving greatness. Because of this, Ben doesn’t want Cale to become involved in the horse business, something that she dreams about being great at, just like her father. He figures it is easier to give up on your dreams when you are young, before it is too late to recover.  

As these things go, Cale falls in love with the horse because she, like all children, is naïve and fails to see that the situation of owning a racehorse is a lot more complex than simply owning a racehorse. Ben knows this and after nursing the horse’s wounds back to health, plans to breed her, but that costs money, money that Ben doesn’t have, and even when he does find it, more complications make the situation an impossibility.

Of the story, I’ve told enough. What I will say is that through luck and coincidence the horse begins to display a knack for racing again. Ben makes a mistake, but makes up for it by making Cale the owner of Sonja, which Cale wants to race in the Breeders Cup, a huge horseracing event that some owners only dream of taking part in. As in achieving all dreams, complications ensue.

In describing the story thus far, I have not offered any indication that Dreamer is a film that stands on its own, but it does because of the performances. Kurt Russell is the kind of actor who is constantly doing an interesting balancing act. In his latest roles, we have seen a man who juggles the wisdom of his age and the joy of his natural boyish charm. In so many films these days, it seems that the father’s job is to be the bad guy, to subdue the dreams of his children and drive the family into strife. Here, in Ben, Russell is that rare actor who can play a good man, which we can forgive for his mistakes.

Then there is Dakota Fanning who sits at the center of this film and, like Russell and Kristofferson, balances wisdom with childish optimism. The film watches as she grows and learns from her father and grandfather, who grow and learn from her and one another as well. Ben admires her belief in Sonja as it comes from the optimism of a child who dreams big and believes the impossible. In addition, Pop admires Ben’s courage in saving the horse as he sees his son’s dreams coming back to life, and Cale admires Ben’s professionalism because without the molding power of reality, dreams can get so big that they simply go over our heads and float away.

Dakota Fanning, at the age of 12, has become one of the most famous child stars of recent history. Her success lies in her constant desire to choose roles in which she places her youth in relation to the complexities of the adult world. Such as in Man on Fire and the hugely underrated Uptown Girls in which she is a young girl forced into maturity by the absence of her mother, only to find hope and friendship in her childish nanny. Here Fanning is forced to understand the grown up world of horseracing through both the dreams and the mistakes of her elders. Her performance is remarkable.

There is a scene in which she must stand up in front of a committee and plead her case as to why they should select her horse to race, and she looks more or less exactly like an twelve year old pleading her case to a committee. Yet there is a scene between her and Morse, in which he offers to buy Sonja back. Here her age drops away and she looks like the real owner of a horse doing business. The challenge of any actor is to assess a situation and decide which notes to bring to the table; Fanning makes it look easy.

Some will fancy themselves above Dreamer, yet to write it off based on content would be a shame. This is a film in which many generic things exist but aren’t concerns within the grand scheme of things, such as whether or not Sonja will win the big race. What matters instead is that one shot during the big race in which Ben looks over at his wife and his daughter as their dreams are coming true, and then looks back at his father who looks back at him with pride. That’s the true heart of this film.