A nice trot

Dakota Fanning comes across as a real unpretentious girl with a dream.

Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, a horse-race drama starring Dakota Fanning, gets the girls and horses thing. It knows they love those four-legged beauties with such mystical fervour whether the movie's a sleek original or another also-ran.

Strictly speaking, Dreamer is definitely the latter. It canters along, content to follow the Rules of Cute and Fuzzy Horse Movies, firmly enshrined in 1944's National Velvet with opal-eyed horse princess Elizabeth Taylor:

- Deliver the disappointments as temporary setbacks along the way, not in the final lap.

- Make the horse a, well, underdog, so that every furlong of the big race feels like a stand-up-and-cheer moment.

- Pump up the family's adorability factor, and make sure the victory is about more than just winning.

This movie isn't one of those dramas with a broader mission, such as 2003's Seabiscuit, in which the racing fate of the horse becomes spiritually linked with Depression-era America. Dreamer, which also stars Kurt Russell and Kris Kristofferson, is for family audiences seeking easy assurance, moral certitude and moving scenes of a gorgeous, galloping horse.

The gorgeous one is Sonador - Spanish for dreamer - and when little Cale Crane (Fanning) first meets her, the mare has a fractured leg and is about to be euthanised. The injury has come about because the greedy Palmer (David Morse) insisted Sonador race despite warnings about her condition from concerned trainer Ben (Russell), who's also Cale's father.

Cale begs Ben, who has just lost his job for yelling at Palmer, to adopt the horse. But Ben and his wife, Lily (Elisabeth Shue), are going through hard times at their horse farm, and it would be economic folly to maintain an expensive racing dud. Still, unable to refuse his daughter's pleading baby blues, Ben agrees to take on Sonador, whom they now call Sonya. As he rationalises it later, Sonya is good breeding material. She could bring in money, after all, even if she'll never race again.

Writer-director John Gatins seems to know that to make a film like Dreamer you have to follow the rules of the blues: It ain't what you play, but how you play. Those little moments between the predictable plot points are the grace notes. Kristofferson, who gets shaggier and hoarier every film, exudes effortless heft as Ben's estranged father. Russell, no stranger to a heartwarming plotline after an early career in Disney films, plays Ben with such easygoing confidence, it's easy to underappreciate his deftness.

Fanning's welcome has become not a little worn, after star turns already last year in War of the Worlds and Hide and Seek. But her air of innocence as Cale - she seems genuinely shy, disarming and unpretentious - makes you forget those other roles, and it's as though you're watching a real girl with a dream, not a child actress playing a kid. That credibility is crucial. After all, there are young eyes in the audience looking for someone who speaks for them, someone who understands the lure of horses. And for about an hour and a half, Fanning will be their Liz Taylor.