Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (G)
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This movie came out in 1991. I believe I first saw it on TV in 1994, on The Wonderful World of Disney, during the years after that had ended as a regular series, and only showed occasional special presentations. (I saw it for the second time when I got it on DVD in 2014.) Anyway, the movie is based on a true story, but the details seem to be greatly altered. The movie starts in 1932, and as far as I could tell, it ends sometime the next year (or maybe even the same year). But it depicts events that occurred between 1923 and 1931, in real life. It's about a girl named Sonora Webster (Gabrielle Anwar). Um... I'm really not sure how old Sonora was meant to be in the movie, but she was still in school, and looked about 14 or 15 (though Anwar must have been about 20 when the movie was made).

So, here's the story. Sonora and her little sister, Arnette, were orphans living with their Aunt Helen. Sonora was a very stubborn girl, with big dreams... except that she didn't really have any idea what those dreams actually were. She just knew she wanted to find something more exciting than she could find in her small town in Georgia, during the Great Depression. (She'd seen an ad in a magazine that said Atlantic City was "where all your dreams come true," so she hoped to go there someday.) It seems like her only friend was a horse named Lightning. Then one day, after Sonora had caused some trouble before school and later during school, her aunt sold Lightning, and told Sonora she was sending her to become a ward of the state. So Sonora decided to run away. There was a traveling circus (or something) in town, where she met a boy named Clifford, who looked to be about her age, and developed an immediate crush on her. He was a bit of an inventor, and had big dreams of his own, to someday develop his own death-defying circus act.

But anyway, the reason Sonora was there was because of a newspaper ad that had been placed by a guy called Dr. Carver, who was like some kind of Buffalo Bill-type showman. He wanted a diving girl... that is, a girl to ride a horse off a tower and dive into a pool. He had a woman named Marie who was working as a diver, but she really just saw it as a stepping stone to "get discovered" and become a movie star. Still, I'm not sure why he was advertising for a new girl if he already had her, but whatever. Sonora shows up and pretty much insists on getting the job. He refuses, because he says she's too young. But she doesn't take no for an answer, so he finally hires her as a stable hand, and they go to his farm in Virginia. "They" being Sonora, Carver, Marie, and Carver's son, Al (whose mother had left years ago). One day, Al won a wild horse in a poker game, and he and Sonora worked on taming it, in order to convince Dr. Carver to give Sonora a chance as a diving girl. (Sonora named the horse Lightning.) And um... at one point, Al and Sonora went swimming, and he kissed her, which seemed kinda squicky to me, because he was definitely an adult (the actor was around 30) and she was a teenager. (She really could have been a year or two older than I thought, but still... definitely not an adult. Although in real life, Sonora was about 19 when they met, and I have no idea how long it was before anything happened between them, so... whatever.) Anyway, Dr. Carver finally lets Sonora train to become a diving girl. And when Marie gets injured, Sonora finally gets her chance to perform in the act. And later, Marie quits, to pursue an acting career. So Sonora becomes the star.

However, Al and his father had always had a strained relationship, and one day they have a fight, and Al leaves home, promising to write to Sonora. But Dr. Carver always gets rid of Al's letters before Sonora can see them. Meanwhile, Carver hires Clifford as a horse groomer. And we'll also see him eventually develop an act of his own. And eventually Al returns, right about the time his dad can no longer find anyone that wants to book his act. But Al had found a promoter in Atlantic City who books his father's act to perform there. So Sonora finally gets to the city where her dreams are supposed to come true. And she finally learns that Al had been writing to her, after all, and they eventually get engaged. And yet... there are a couple of tragedies in the movie, the nature of which I don't want to spoil. But one of them makes it seem like Sonora would have to stop performing. Of course, considering the movie's title, it's pretty obvious she's not going to give up on her dream. So things work out in the end.

Um... I must be forgetting lots of details, but in general I liked the movie. Certainly I always liked Sonora's spunkiness (and even her stubbornness). I couldn't help thinking Clifford would have made a much better romantic interest for her, both because of their (apparently) compatible ages, and because I just thought they had more in common than Sonora and Al. And because Clifford seemed like a better person than Al. But... that's not how real life went, so I guess there are only so many changes a movie can make to history.