‘Wild Hearts’: Bland Disney Family Fare

The name of the film is “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken,” and that’s also the message of the film. Sonora Webster (Gabrielle Anwar), a young orphan growing up in Depression-era Georgia, ditches her uncaring aunt and joins up with a traveling stunt show as a diving horse girl. From a height of 40 feet, she bestrides a galloping horse and plunges into a tank of water. Maybe her heart can’t be broken, but her neck seems to be in constant jeopardy. Not to mention the horses’.

In fact, Sonora’s diving leads to a mishap, at which point the film, which has been puttering along in the bland-rambunctious family-fare mode, suddenly turns weepy-inspirational. The real-life Sonora, an Atlantic City headliner in her day, must have had spunk to burn, and Gabrielle Anwar tries to liven things up with some spunk of her own. She never gets too tomboyish, though; the filmmakers have been careful to provide Sonora with an adoring suitor (Michael Schoeffling), the son of the embittered grouch (Cliff Robertson) who owns the traveling show. Robertson does the only real acting in the movie, although his bewhiskered make-up job recalls Lon Chaney Jr. in his first stage as the Wolfman.

It should be noted that, although a mechanical horse was used for the diving sequences, the film doesn’t go out of its way to condemn a stunt that’s still not unheard of in county fairs and carnivals. The horses’ terror gets short shrift; the implication is that they like to dive. It’s a guilt-free way for the filmmakers to glorify Sonora’s “heroism.”

As one of the few current G-rated movies in captivity, Disney’s “Wild Hearts” (citywide) is a bit too moony for the kiddies and a bit too stunted for teens. It’s a movie in transit: its proper destination, no doubt, will be the Disney Channel.

Giddyap! ‘Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken’

Gabrielle Anwar: Sonora Webster

Michael Schoeffling: Al Carver

Cliff Robertson: Dr. Carver

A Walt Disney Pictures presentation, released by Buena Vista Pictures. Director Steve Miner. Producer Matt Williams. Executive producer Oley Sassone. Screenplay by Matt Williams & Oley Sassone. Cinematographer Daryn Okada. Editor Jon Poll. Costumes Malissa Daniel. Music Mason Daring. Production design Randy Ser. Art director Thomas Fichter. Set decorator Jean Alan. 1 hour, 47 minutes.

MPAA-rated G.