Equus – 1977 | 137 mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Peter Shaffer’s Academy Award nominated screenplay Equus, which he adapted for the screen under the reverential direction of Sidney Lumet, is an excellent example of film-as-theatre. Under Lumet’s outstanding suspenseful direction, the psychological drama sets out to deduce why the crudely spiritual Peter Firth blinded six horses belonging to Harry Andrews. Shaffer’s screenplay fuses religion, sex, mythology and madness into a not always coherent narrative. Richard Burton produces an outstanding lead performance thanks in part to a script that allows him to have a handful of melancholic monologues direct to camera. Firth’s performance is flawless yet undemanding whilst Jenny Agutter is excellent as the plausible young stable girl.

Judge Hesther Saloman (Eileen Atkins) approaches morose psychiatrist Dr. Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) with a request than he unravel the mind of troubled teenager Alan Strang (Peter Firth) and discover why the young man blinded six horses. In the process, Dysart discerns the boy’s psyche, and determines that the source of the boy’s obsession is his devout mother Dora (Joan Plowright). She has allowed her son to believe in a convoluted set of religious values, and consequently he has imagined the transference of extremely physical religious devotion to Jesus, to the spirit Equus as embodied in horses. The boy’s outrage at his personal deity is finally triggered by his sexual inadequacy during a tryst with stable girl Jill Mason (Jenny Agutter).