BY JENNY PASCHAL

War Horse started its life as a novel, published in 1982 by celebrated young adults’ author Michael Morpurgo. It went on to be adapted, first into a radio play, then as an acclaimed stage play. So it was inevitable that it would eventually make it to the big screen.

A collaboration between Disney Studios and Steven Spielberg is both a blessing and a curse for this sort of story. The first part of the movie takes the required time to establish the relationship between horse and boy, and the result is a very family friendly montage of the camaraderie that develops between the titular war horse, Joey, and his human friend, Albert. Albert (Jeremy Irvine) watches the foal being born, and is instantly besotted. Joey as a colt is shown to be sprightly and spirited and grows into a keenly intelligent beast. Bought on a whim by Albert’s drunkard father, he is eventually tamed with love and care by Albert, and put to work saving the family farm, with mixed results.

Then of course, war breaks out and Spielberg shifts the proceedings into somewhat more adult territory, yet keeps the storytelling in the slow lane. Joey is bought as a mount by earnest young cavalry officer Captain Nichols (Tom Hiddleston) and Joey and Albert are parted from one another in a scene that will break the hardest of hearts. Joey goes off to war and has a series of adventures, passing from hand to hand as the war takes its toll, and touching the lives of civilians and soldiers in both English and German uniforms.

The battle sequences and deaths are handled with the delicacy appropriate to a Disney film, and yet the fact of the astounding number of horses that perished during the war is hardly touched upon, which seems shallow considering the subject matter. The depiction of violence towards the animals is kept to a minimum in order to make the story less confronting, and Joey is worked hard but actually seems to be treated with considerable respect due to his intelligence. The full impact on human and animal alike isn’t hammered home, with Spielberg going for a more indirect take on the war, this time as seen through the experiences of an animal- this isn’t Saving Private Ryan with horses. The depiction of soldiers from both armies is handled tastefully, with the German characters generally being portrayed as just as in over their heads as their British counterparts, instead of the usual stereotype of faceless thugs they often get in big-budget Hollywood movies. There is an electrifying scene when Joey is trapped on the battlefield, and the English and German troops call a short, uneasy ceasefire so their men can work together to free him from barbed wire. It is a touching moment of humanity, all for the sake of a poor injured animal, and one can easily imagine something like that really taking place.

Joey is played over the course of the film by fourteen different incredibly well-trained horses, and is imbued with decidedly human characteristics in order to be a character viewers can relate to. He is successfully portrayed as intelligent, willful, loyal and sympathetic and makes a great lead character; he is just so beautiful to watch. Jeremy Irvine turns shades of Samwise Gamgee as Albert Narracott, but is down-to-earth and likeable as Joey’s best human friend. After all the mud and danger and loss, their reunion at the end is perfectly touching. Emily Watson and Peter Mullan are a good fit as Albert’s struggling farmer parents, though their characters are rather clichéd and a means to an end for the early story. Tom Hiddleston is drop-dead gorgeous in uniform as the naive and sincere Captain Nichols, it’s a shame his role is so brief; the same can be said for Benedict Cumberbatch, who brings cool charm to the part of Major Stewart.

War Horse is at times difficult to watch. It is a very intimate look at the impact of war on working animals, who are essentially pressed into service, and who were treated as wholly disposable. The most touching scene, when a fellow war horse is literally worked to death, had me openly in tears, and will upset many viewers. (All filming and training was closely supervised by the American Humane Society.) It is hard to say what sort of audience Disney and Spielberg are going for here: it is upsetting subject matter for the very young, and adults or fans of war films will possibly find it too sentimental. Overall the film is very well done, often sad, sometimes sweet and quite funny, but a little slow and a little too broad to be really satisfying.