Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (1992)

This is the charming, true story of Sonora Webster (Gabrielle Anwar), a Depression-era orphan with an unusual dream: to join a high-diving horse act and plunge off a 40-foot tower into a tank of water. The tenacious teen soon wins the confidence of the show's gruff owner (Cliff Robertson) — and the unbridled affection of his son (Michael Schoeffling) — only to find herself saddled with an even greater test of courage: blindness.

Wild Hearts, which had a brief life in theaters last summer, loses some of its impact on video: The sweeping Southern vistas seem cramped here, and the horse-diving sequences (supervised by the American Humane Association) need replaying to get their full effect. Still, in the end, producer-cowriter Matt Williams (creator of Roseanne) manages to put the plot before the horse and create an inspirational family film. B