Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken

Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Steve Miner
Produced by Matt Williams
Written by Matt Williams
Oley Sassone
Starring
Music by Mason Daring
Cinematography Daryn Okada
Edited by Jon Poll
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release dates
  • May 24, 1991 (1991-05-24)
Running time
 88 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $7.3 million

Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken is a 1991 film about Sonora Webster Carver, a rider of diving horses. It is based on events in her life as told in her memoir A Girl and Five Brave Horses.[1][2]

Plot

Sonora Webster is an orphan living with her emotionally abusive aunt during the Great Depression. Sonora learns that because of the family's financial difficulties, her treasured horse Lightning will be sold and she will be placed in an orphanage. Instead, Sonora slips out of the house during the night.

Sonora ends up at a county fair and sees a performance by Marie, a diving girl, as she jumps onto a horse as it runs up a steep platform just before it leaps off into a pool of water. Sonora then informs Doc Carver, Marie's employer, that she is his new diving girl, and Doc tells her she is too young.

Later Doc sees how talented Sonora is with horses and decides to give her a job as a stable hand. She then begins traveling with them, bonding with his son Al and even Doc himself. Al wins a wild horse in a game of cards, and he says that if she can tame it, he believes his father will give her a chance to train as a diving girl. She surprises him one day by riding up on it and he promises she can train to be a diving girl if she can mount it while it's moving. After multiple attempts, she finally succeeds and Doc keeps his promise, much to the chagrin of Marie. She and the wild horse, Lightning, develop a special bond which proves important later in the film.

One day, Marie falls and dislocates her shoulder, leaving her unable to perform. Thus, Sonora becomes the diving girl, even though the swimsuits don't fit her. Although she has never actually dived with Lightning into the pool of water, Sonora is successful at her first jump. Marie is so jealous that she makes unreasonable demands of Doc to ensure her stardom status, and after he refuses them, she quits the show rather than share billing with Sonora.

Al and his father have always had a difficult relationship, which isn't helped by his burgeoning romance with Sonora, and one day he leaves after having a particularly bad fight with him. He and Sonora have almost shared their first kiss, and he promises to write her. Again, he keeps his promise, but Doc, protective of Sonora, hides Al's letters from her. Doc and the new stable hand Clifford (whom she met earlier) leave the farm in search of work, and that night Lightning falls ill. Sonora spends the night worrying over him and is awakened by Al, who has returned and discovers that Lightning ate some moldy hay and has developed colic. Al and Sonora work together to heal Lightning and are walking him when Doc and Clifford return with the news there is no more work to be had and announcing that the show is over.

Al asks Sonora why she never wrote him, and she tells him that she never received any letters from him. Both are confused over the missing letters. It is then learned that Al arranged a six-month contract with the Steel Pier in Atlantic City to perform the show and it's come through. The good news seems to patch up old differences between Doc and Al. Just as everyone seems to be getting along, Doc passes away en route to Atlantic City, apparently from a heart attack. Al takes over his father's role as a show presenter. On Al's first day, he is extremely nervous, so Sonora finds Doc's famous fringed jacket to give Al confidence. In it she also finds one of Al's old letters, confessing his love for her. When Sonora finds Al, she lets him know she feels the same.

Meanwhile, Clifford has acquired a rusted-out motorcycle from a friend in Atlantic City and plans to refurbish it to working status; Sonora is unimpressed and laughs at the notion.

Al and Sonora perform at Atlantic City in front of their largest audience. Everyone is nervous and excited. As she is climbing the ladder, he proposes to her. She accepts and gets ready to do the jump. The horse, a jittery stallion who is not her usual partner Lightning, is anxious because of all the noise from the band and the crowd, and just before the jump a cymbal crashes loudly, which causes him to falter and trip. Sonora keeps her eyes open as they fall into the water. Both of them make it, but her vision is impaired, yet she hides this from Al and won't seek medical attention for the condition.

The next day when she wakes up, Sonora discovers she can't see. The doctor diagnoses detached retinas in both her eyes due to uncontrolled hemorrhaging behind them (a result of the high impact of the dive and her open eyes at the point of it) and tells her the condition is permanent and she will be blind for the rest of her life. In order to avoid a breach of contract lawsuit, Al must find another diving girl within a week, and calls Marie, who returns to be it.

Clifford has been working on his "new" motorcycle and gets it back in working condition. He demonstrates his new act for a small crowd including Al and Sonora—it is an enormous metal ball in which he rides around inside on the motorcycle, doing loop after loop. The crowd is amazed and he is pleased with his new "death-defying" act.

Meanwhile, Sonora misses diving terribly, and feels utterly helpless and like a burden to Al. She tells him of her desires to dive again, and indicates her unique bond with Lightning as evidence that she could do it again as she knows him so well. She and Al work together to try to train her to mount him again, much the same way she and Doc once worked together earlier to train her to do so in motion. She is stubborn and refuses to give up, but Al forces her to accept the fact that it is impossible. She spends some quiet time with Lightning that night.

The next day, with the help of Clifford, Marie is locked in her dressing room, and Sonora climbs the platform. As she climbs the ladder her friend Clifford releases an eager Lightning from his stable and he canters through the crowds and makes his way to the ramp. He pounds at the ground with excitement and begins to trot up to Sonora where she patiently awaits his arrival. Though Al is scared for her and shouts at her to come back down, the crowd doesn't know she's blind, and she uses her other senses to have a very successful jump. She is again the diving girl, and her voiceover tells us that she continued diving for eleven more years with the audience never learning the truth, as well as her happy marriage to Al.

Cast

Reception

Upon the film's release, Sonora Webster Carver, who had lost her sight, and her sister Arnette French heard the movie together, but Sonora was dissatisfied with its romanticism of her life despite its appeal to the general public.

“ The movie made a big deal about having the courage to go on riding after she lost her sight. But, the truth was riding the horse was the most fun you could have and we just loved it so. ”
— Arnette French, NY Times[3]

The film currently holds a 70% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Holden, Stephen (1991-05-24). "Review/Film; The True Story Of a Girl, a Horse, A Diving Board". NY Times.
  2. ↑ Rainer, Peter (May 24, 1991). "'Wild Hearts': Bland Disney Family Fare". The Los Angeles Times.
  3. ↑ Kent, Bill (1997-05-04). "The Horse Was in Charge". New York Times.
    They weren't so truthful about the facts in that movie, either, Arnette remembers. My sister was so disappointed in it. I remember her turning to me in the theater after we saw it, and her saying, 'the only thing true in it was that I rode diving horses, I went blind, and I continued to ride for another 11 years.'
  4. ↑ "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken". Rotten Tomatoes.
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