Not to take away from anyone’s vigilance over the content of popular culture today, but films like Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken (1991) always put this debate in a different perspective for this historian.  In Catholic terms, one should be careful about what one consumes culturally speaking regardless of current moral panics.  What I am referring to are those among us, often reactionary Christians at least here in the United States, who look at every passing fad as an existential threat for a person’s soul.  Some things could be, but more regularly such feelings are an exaggeration of the situation.  Though this it does not come from a Christian source, I like to reference the Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo in order to help navigate such situations.  Specifically, he said, that a person can “. . . hear about all Ways and be more and more in accord with his own.”  For me, this affirms that God is in control, whether the masses are into labubus or jumping horses off high-dives into swimming pools.

Yes, a main facet of Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken is about jumping horses off high-dives into swimming pools, a sport known simply as horse diving.  For the teenaged, orphaned Sonora Webster (Gabrielle Anwar) living in rural Georgia, it is her ticket out of her bleak existence.  It should be noted that it is 1932.  Between the Great Depression and the lack of television, there is not much people are not willing to do to be distracted and/or entertained.  As for Sonora, getting to Atlantic City and entering such a life would be better than be bullied by her Aunt Helen (Lisa Norman), or her classmates, who all see her as uncouth with her head in the proverbial clouds.  As for her classmates, she punches one in class for making fun of her.  With Aunt Helen, Sonora has an angry outburst when the guardian sells Lightning, the young lady’s prized horse.  That night, with news of Sonora’s suspension for fighting, Aunt Helen says that she is sending her charge to government care.  Instead, Sonora packs her few belongings, kisses her little sister goodbye, and heads out to locate where she can get into horse diving.  She eventually tracks down a circus where Dr. W. F. Carver (Cliff Robertson), a sort of Buffalo Bill lookalike, has the kind of show she desires.  Her initial meeting with the entertainer results in rejection, but she is not one to take no for an answer.  Instead, she tells his son, Al Carver (Michael Schoeffling), whom she had already met, that she is going to be the next diving girl.  Her perseverance seems to pay off because Dr. Carver finds Al and Sonora in the stable and, given her apparent affinity with horses, agrees to take her on as a stable hand.  From there, they return to Dr. Carver’s Virginia home where they continue to train his current star, Marie (Kathleen York).  Not long after getting settled there, Al brings home a new, virtually wild horse.  Sonora is drawn to the stallion, and with some help from Al, decides to tame the beast, naming him Lightning.  In doing so, he starts to fall in love with her.  My Catholic radar was up for this development because she appears to be quite young and him much older.  Nothing inappropriate happens, especially not under Dr. Carver’s watch, who thinks his son to be of low moral character.  Dr. Carver is protective of Sonora in other ways.  Upon presenting herself is ready to learn how to become a horse diver, Dr. Carver is insistent that she keep trying until she masters the key maneuver needed to make it happen.  What each person involved in the sport needs to do is to be able to grab onto the saddle as the thoroughbred gallops past and swing themselves onto the back.  Sonora falls many times, each stumble causing Al angst, but each time Dr. Carver tells her to get up and try again.  The strain proves to be too much for Al, who leaves while promising to write.  After Marie injures her shoulder trying to ride Lightning, meaning it is now time for Sonora to get her chance.  When she does so, Marie behaves like a diva and says she is departing to start her acting career.  Nonetheless, Sonora begins to make a name for herself through her daring, but eventually the shows begin drying up as the country’s economic state worsens.  As the struggles mount, Dr. Carver is keeping Al’s letters from Sonora.  Speaking of Al, like so many others, he travels around looking for work.  His wanderings take him to Atlantic City where he is able to secure a six-month gig for Sonora, something she had always dreamed of doing.  On the way there, Dr. Carver dies, making Al the new front man for the act.  They push on, with Al asking Sonora to marry him before does her first dive.  While everyone is happy that she says yes, her inaugural performance results in tragedy.  At the point of leaping, the horse (not Lightning) is spooked by the clash of a cymbal and checks.  It is enough to through off the concentration, and Sonora’s eyes are open when they hit the water. Everything seems fine and she refuses to be examined by a doctor, a few days later she starts to go blind.  It looks to be the end of her career, and she even tries to tell Al that she is not worth marrying.  He flatly denies her suggestion, and instead calls upon Marie to replace Sonora.  Instead, Sonora begins trying to learn how to mount Lightning by feel, though her trial runs are not successful.  All the same, on the day when Marie is set to jump, Sonora finds a way to be on the platform.  To everyone’s astonishment, she completes the trick to thunderous applause.

The end credits for Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken begin rolling shortly thereafter, with Sonora telling us about how she continued horse jumping, married Al, and started a family.  Horse jumping aside, this is nothing that a good Catholic like myself cannot support.  I was concerned about the age gap, but I am hoping the inference is that this story takes place over the course of a few years and she eventually comes of age.  At any rate, and this is no excuse, but one can accept this a little because such standards were different in the 1930s.  Finally, Anwar was twenty-one when the film was released.  The aspect of this that is a little more dicey is the actual sport.  God does not want us to be cruel to one another, nor to animals.  The film tries to paint the relationship between Lightning and Sonora as a sympathetic one, and to her credit, she seems to genuinely care about the horses under her care.  At one point, Lightning comes down with colic, and she lays with him in his stable until Al comes to help.  This is as Christian of an act as any other.  I stand by such statements even when there are those that make the claim that eating animal flesh undercuts such sentiments.  There is some merit to this argument, although I have no plans of becoming a vegan or vegetarian.  The only counter I have to that is God giving us dominion over the Earth and all the crawl, fly, or swims on it.  Further, there are some religious orders that eschew meat.  At any rate, it is a personal decision.  Hopefully, we can all agree that jumping a horse off a forty-foot platform is not a good idea.

At the same time, I would not say that watching Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken is a bad idea.  It is a decent period film, and it is based on a true story.  If you do see it, try to focus on the fulfilling of dreams aspect of the movie rather than the cruel part.