Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)

True to the title of his film, writer/director John Gatins states, “This movie is about dreams. It is about the dreams of a young girl who idolizes her father, the dreams of a family that has fallen on hard times, and the dream they all share for the remarkable horse that unites them.”

“All the characters dream of different things,” notes Dakota Fanning, who stars as Cale Crane, the young girl whose belief in an injured racehorse puts her dreams into action. “My character dreams of being around horses with her father, to see her horse, Sonya, race to victory and, most of all, to help her family.”

Cale’s dreams turn into an unwavering faith in Sonya—whose full name, Soñador, means “dreamer” in Spanish—and it is that faith that causes her father to ignore his better judgment and put everything he has into rehabilitating the injured filly, who shows her own brand of courage. Kurt Russell, who stars as Cale’s father, Ben Crane, offers, “I think the process of bringing the horse back to health brings the family together—especially the father and daughter. Cale’s love of Soñador teaches Ben something that had been missing in his work, which happens to be training horses. Clearly, Ben had lost his ability to dream, but in letting his daughter live her dream, he is able to find it again.”

The son of a now-retired New York City police officer, John Gatins felt a special connection to the events of 9/11 and says that in the post-9/11 world, “I was looking to explore a world that was steeped in Americana, which I think horse racing really is. The first kernel of the idea was about this horse trainer who was down on his luck and maybe had one last chance to make it. Soñador gives him that chance.”

Gatins has written screenplays about football, basketball and baseball, but although “Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story” is his first film about horse racing, he reveals that his formative years were actually steeped in horses and horse racing. “When I was growing up, we lived near the Roosevelt horse farms in New York. I used to see them on the way to school. I was only ten when I went to the racetrack for the first time. I always joke that this movie had a very long and expensive research process because I have been a big horse racing fan for so many years.”

Gatins continues, “The New York racing papers cover horse racing in a really amazing and elegant way. The way they describe the horses is as if they are talking about boxers or football players. They give them personalities, so the horses came alive to me as actual characters. I thought it would be great to make a movie about one of those characters. I began going to the racetrack and following the different horses like athletes, watching their careers as they started going for the Triple Crowns, the big races, the classics. These horses are bred to race; they are bred to be super athletes. What is truly remarkable to me is that two horses might have the same bloodlines and physical make-up, but some horses just have more heart and drive.”

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