“A lot of the road movies I like are about people who think they’re looking for freedom, but actually the freedom is very overwhelming for them,” says British director Andrew Haigh. “That’s the problem with freedom sometimes: You end up incredibly scared and alone.”
Haigh’s fantastic and harrowing new film, Lean on Pete, explores the sadness and danger of an upbringing that affords altogether too much freedom. Charley (Charlie Plummer) is the son of a single father who can barely keep himself out of trouble, let alone make ends meet, but the 15-year-old doesn’t rebel in the typical teenager ways. Instead, he’s constantly on the lookout for the stability his home life can’t provide, leading him to spend time at a nearby racetrack, where he does odd jobs for a horse trainer, Del (Steve Buscemi), and bonds with a quarter horse named Lean on Pete.
The film was shot in Portland and the southeastern Oregon town of Burns, and Haigh’s screenplay is adapted from the excellent 2010 novel by local writer/musician Willy Vlautin, who set Charley’s sad, emotional story amid real locations, like Portland Meadows, where several of the film’s racing scenes were shot.