The story focuses on a girl named Sonora Webster, who was actually a real person dreaming to dive on a horse.

In 1932, Sonora lives with her cruel aunt, Helen, who looks after her and her little sister, Arnette. Both girls are orphans.

When Sonora looks through a magazine and sees a hairstyle she likes, she chops off her super long, flowing hair to her shoulders. But when Aunt Helen sees her, she is horrified, puts a paper bag on her, and forces her to walk out like that.

Once far away enough, Sonora removes the bag off her head. But then she does come across some mean kids from her school while greeting the family horse, Lightning.

She is also late to class, causing her teacher to give her detention. When this unkind girl, Clarabelle, embarrasses her to why she was tardy, she slaps her and makes her cry. Her teacher suspends her and tells her aunt.

Later, Sonora sees Lightning the horse being taken away. Aunt Helen tells her that it was because she was late to school, got detention and suspended, and has been nothing but trouble since her parents died.

When Sonora comes across an ad in a newspaper looking for a diving girl to dive while riding a horse, she gets excited. Yet she does need to hide it from her aunt.

That evening, Aunt Helen decides that she’s going to send Sonora to an orphanage. Yet Arnett can stay behind. This prompts Sonora to sneak out and run away from home.

The next day, Sonora enters a fair. She meets this man, Doc Carver, and politely asks him to hire her as a diving girl. But he refuses, no matter how much Sonora convinces him that she is capable and qualified.

However, he will let her travel with him to Virginia and work on his stable. And they depart shortly after.

Once there, Sonora meets this young man named Al. He is being delivered an anxious horse.

At first, Al is hesitant to let Sonora ride or handle the horse. But after several attempts, even as she gets hurt, Al changes his mind.

Sonora also decides to name the horse Lightning, after the horse her aunt got rid of. She learns how to ride him.

But outside of those lessons, Doc Carver seems harsh, unfair, and sometimes kind of violent. Not only is he like that with Sonora and Al, but also this other lady, Marie. Marie is already a professional diving girl.

Sonora continues practicing her lessons riding Lightning. She also develops feelings for Al.

However, at some point, Doc Carver becomes physically abusive to Al, because he doesn’t agree with him giving Sonora a lot of leeway. This causes Al to run away.

Al constantly writes to Sonora. But unfortunately, Doc Carver hides his letters to her and sometimes even Burns them. He even tells Sonora that she has no mail.

While with Marie, Sonora tells her not to use her feet when riding Lightning since it startles him. Yet she ignores that. Sadly, that causes her to get hurt and unable to continue diving for a while.

Because Doc Carver still needs a diving girl, he decides to let Sonora go ahead. Of course, Sonora is nervous because she has never done this before.

Yet she shows her bravery, takes her first dive, and impresses the audience. Regardless of that, Doc Carver still hides and gets rid of any letters to Sonora from Al.

Sometime later, Lightning gets ill with colic. Therefore, he cannot perform for a while.

But Al does return. He also announces that he has a 6-month contract at the Steel Pierre in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

So, everyone hits the road. When Al tries to confess what really happened to Sonora’s letters from Al, he decides to pull over. But before he can admit what he did, he ends up revealing to Al that he is his biological father. This prompts the 2 to reconcile.

Unfortunately, Doc Carver has a heart attack and dies shortly after. Al is presumed the new commentator for all the diving shows.

What will all that lead to?

This movie kept me engaged from the beginning – especially because the opening had a lot of tension. The biggest strength was a flawed main character who does the wrong things and has bad things happen to her. They ranged from having an abusive caregiver to facing penalties for being late to school and slapping a classmate who is teasing her.

Yes, this movie was based on a true story. But like pretty much all films about real people and events, there were a lot of fictionalized moments. In fact, only a few parts from the movie were true, although they were major elements.

Sonora was a very likable girl. I constantly rooted for her to achieve her goals. And even though bad things constantly happened to her, and it kept my attention, I still sometimes dislike that. It was probably as a way to empathize with her.

But she seemed to be portrayed younger than how she is described in plot summaries. Her age is not stated. However, the opening where she attends school with kids in their tweens and early teens hinted to me that she was only 13 or 14.

Yet sources online hint that she was 15 or 16. In real life, though, Sonora was in her early 20s.

Even though I strongly appreciate the high levels of conflict, I did absolutely loathe Doc Carver for a while. In fact, I was predicting that Sonora was find out what he did to her letters from Al, and she would yell at and leave him as well as view him as toxic.

I honestly would’ve preferred that over him reconciling with Al and revealing to be his father. I understand that it’s necessary for characters to change. And scenes where previous enemies reconcile is generally satisfying. But in this case, it left too many loose unresolved ends.

Otherwise, this movie had mostly strengths. I loved Sonora’s bond with different horses. I felt bad when Aunt Helen sold Lightning just because of Sonora’s issues.

I will also admit that watching Sonora ride a horse while diving about fifty feet from the air looked kind of scary. Not surprisingly, that popular form of entertainment was banned in the 1970s. It was considered a form of animal cruelty and extremely dangerous to both the horse and the person riding it.

But I’m sure a lot of changes were made to make it look like it was actually happening – except with CGI and special effects behind the scenes. Even though that type of technology was much more primitive in the early 90s, I’m sure there was something they did to keep everyone safe while that scene was produced.

Overall, I enjoyed Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken. It is a fun, fast-paced watch that can entertain people of all ages.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.