Partly a story about a boy and a horse, partly an allegory, and partly a story of finding yourself and leaving the past behind, this liltingly scored Irish movie has a good deal of charm, even if its pace, like that of the horse (white of course), varies from a trot to a gallop. The horse appears on the seashore, attaches itself to Grandpa Riley and clearly has a mission in life. Cottoning on to Riley's eight-year-old grandson Ossie, it settles in to the family high-rise with Ossie's cool, protective older brother Tito and their father (Gabriel Byrne), an ex-traveller who has tried to settle to city life since the death of his wife and now lurches between odd jobs and the bottle. The horse's jumping prowess brings it to the attention of Byrne's arch-enemy, the local (crooked) police inspector, who sees to it that the horse ends up in the hands of an equally corrupt businessman. The rest of the film concerns the boys' seizure of the horse during a show-jumping event and their subsequent flight 'into the West'. The film goes precious on us in an over-sentimental ending, but incidentals along the way - especially when boys and horse break into a cinema and watch a Western eating popcorn - compensate.

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