Having seen Secretariat, I really don’t get where the alleged faith-based Christian marketing angle fits in. The film is aimed at family audiences– it has a square and conservative vibe — and director Randall Wallace is something of a rightie, I’m told, but there’s nothing in the story/screenplay that proclaims Christian or conservative values per se. I saw that vein in The Blind Side but it’s simply not in Secretariat.

Thematically it’s a quasi-feminist thing, being about Diane Lane‘s Penny Chenery defying her husband (who wants her to stay at home and raise the kids and cook) and brother (who wants her to sell the horse farm) in order to nurture and bring along her horse, Secretariat, to a Triple Crown victory. The tone is little like The Adventures of Spin and Marty — nice and tidy and middle-class, but in no way a religious-type deal except for the strange playing of the spiritual tune “O Happy Day” twice on the soundtrack.