War Horse (2011) Movie Summary

It all started with a horse auction in the village of England in 1914. Ted Narracott, eye falls on a beautiful foal named Joey and spends 30 guineas on the horse, even if it means spending all the rent money. He determines to outbid Lyons for it. Lyons is also the landlord, which means he owns the lands in the village. The Narracott rents one of his. Rose Narracott, Ted’s wife, is distraught. He was meant to bring home a plow horse at a low price. But he bought Joey instead. Joey was named when Albert Narracott, Ted and Rose’s son first laid eye on him. Albert was very happy, unlike his mother, Rose. Albert and Joey bond, and Albert trains the horse to accept a collar and plow their field so that the family can get money from farming to pay for the rent. People in the village and Lyons looked down to him, thinking that Albert and his horse, Joey won’t make it. But then they actually made it, they plow the field and finished in the morning. The Narracott was happy and starts planting turnips for them to pay for the rent. But then it was raining hard, the turnips failed growing and the family farm was officially destroyed by the heavy rain the other night. The Narracott was once again hopeless.

Then World War I breaks out. Drunk as usual, Ted sells the horse to the British Army to pay for his family’s life. He’s Captain Nicholls, he bought Joey for 40 pounds, which is quite a lot.  But before everything is complete, Albert shows up. He's determined to stop the sale. But it’s too late, Joey was sold to Captain Nicholls. Before he (Captain Nicholls) leaves for the war, he tells Albert that he’ll take good care of Joey. Albert sure is sad, but then he promises to Joey that they will be reunited again someday. When the armies with their horses are about to leave for the war, Albert remembers that he has his father’s regimental pennant from the last war his father got into, and so he attaches the regimental pennant onto Joey “It’s for luck” Albert says.

Joey's in the army now, and he has a new rider, Corporal Samuel Perkins. Joey misses sweet little Albert a lot. Captain Nicholls gives Perkins a little talk, telling him how important horses are to the military and how he better take care of them. After that, Perkins is a little more gentle when training. Before the war starts, Nicholls takes Joey on his last maneuvers before departing for the front lines. During these final maneuvers, Joey meets a new friend, a black, big, beautiful horse named Topthorn. And so the war starts, Joey and his rider, Captain Nicholls which are departing in the front lines, starts to go on and get in the German’s camp with a brave face, whether Nicholls is going to get out alive. Sure enough, Joey ends up as a horse without a rider. He loses Captain Nicholls in the charge. Nicholls was shot, sadly. Nicholls's friend Captain Stewart tells Joey that Nicholls died leading the charge. He also says that Nicholls would have been proud of Joey.

Sadly, Joey get caught by the Germans, together with his big friend, Topthorn. Joey and Topthorn are now no longer England’s. The German brothers which are involved in the war also and are in the camp, they meet Topthorn and Joey. They fell in love with them the first time they met. They are Michael and Gunther. Gunther is only 14 and he is asked to join the war as a soldier. Long story short, Gunther and Michael hid in the windmill from the soldiers. It was Michael’s idea, he took Gunther there because he didn’t agree for Gunther to go to the war. Finally at night when they’re resting inside the windmill with Topthorn and Joey (they took them from the camp). But unfortunately, the brothers get caught by the German soldiers and they’re shot to death.

The next morning, a little French girl named Emilie found both horses in the windmill. She fell in love with them, so they took them. Emilie lives in the family farm only with her Grand-pére (Grandfather in French), her parents are dead, killed by the soldiers when Emilie was still a little child. Grand-pere knew about the horses, at first, he didn’t agree. But  Emilie convinced him. Emilie then trained Joey to jump and such, also to ride. But unfortunately, one afternoon, Emilie rides Joey up to the hill to practice. Grand-pere’s waiting for Emilie to come back, but she’s not coming back. He finally checks up to the hill and finds Emilie screaming and terrified with Joey and Topthorn get caught by the Germans. The German soldiers are now taking them away from Emilie.

It comes up to where Joey and Topthorn are in another German camp where the horses there are treated badly. Those horses are forced to pull the artillery up edge of the hill (They’re working to death). Joey and Topthorn sure are terrified seeing other horses dead. Heighlemann, the one that is taking care of the horse even says “Such a pity they found you.” Topthorn is wounded, so he can’t pull up the canon with other horses. Surprisingly, Joey volunteers to pull up the artillery. Joey then finally makes it to the top. This artillery is used to shoot canons to the English trench where we see Albert, Andrew, Lyons, and his son, David there in the trench. We can see that they are now British soldiers. All of them are surely terrified to face the German soldiers up there to the no-man’s land and kill each other. Albert and his friends enters the trench, so many soldiers die in the no-man’s land. David is wounded, so he was left outside so that somebody will pick him up later. Albert finally gets into the german trench, seeing all the german soldiers’ dead bodies on the ground. Albert is now with his friend, Andrew which later dies from the poisonous gas. Albert survived, but his eyes are injured.

The next scene shows when Heighlemann is walking through the muddy field with the other German forces pulling Joey and Topthorn. Topthorn is obviously exhausted that he fell lying on the dirty ground dying. Joey is told to run away quickly by Heighlemann when Joey is being chased by a tank trying to kill this innocent horse. Joey then runs to the trenches and got into the no-man’s land and got caught in the barb wires. Then, the British and the German soldiers notice there’s a horse in the no-man’s land. Eventually, two soldiers from different sides. One is Peter from the Germany, one is Colin from the Britain. Both of them try to free Joey from the barb wires. He is wounded. Colin and Peter then flips coin to know who gets the horse. Colin wins, so he gets Joey.

From here, we can see Albert gets treatment from the nurses. His eyes are injured from the gas that got him. Colin brings Joey to the doctor, he asked the doctor to treat Joey’s wounds. But the doctor says no. Joey almost get killed because the doctor tells the officer to shoot him. Right after the officer pulls the trigger, Albert whistles, calling his long-lost friend, Joey. Joey comes up to Albert. Somehow, the execution is cancelled because Albert convinces the officer and the doctor that the horse is his. When the war has ended, Joey is put up in the auction because Joey is not an officer horse. But the other soldiers gave Albert 29 pounds to buy Joey back. In the auction, a random rich man was betting on Joey for a high price, when it comes to 29 pounds, an old man, which is Emilie’s grand-pere, came all the way to Britain to buy the horse back for 100 pounds. Clearly Albert is lost. Before giving Joey to the old man, Albert gave Joey one last stroke before the dramatic goodbye. Seeing Albert being so lovable to Joey, the old man gives Joey back to Albert, finally. At first, Albert resists because  the old man spends a lot of money on Joey. But finally, after the old man insists, Albert gets Joey back. The ending scene takes place in front Joey’s house, the family farm. Joey and Albert is now at home.

The themes in this movie are loyalty, love and friendship. It shows that Joey is still loyal to Albert and vice versa. Love is where the characters in the movie care for one another’s existence and well-being as well as their presence and happiness. Albert and Andrew are such great friends, they are loyal, and always be together at war even when Andrew is going to die in any moment in the movie. The friendship and loyalty is about sharing, sacrificing and also loving.