The Horse Whisperer

The Horse Whisperer is a Western love story. It recounts the healing of a

traumatised horse, its troubled teenage owner and her unstable family.
On a snowy morning in upstate New York, Grace and her friend Judith go riding.
A slip on an icy slope slides them into the path of an oncoming truck. Judith and
her horse die in the collision, whilst Grace and her horse Pilgrim survive with
deep mental and physical scars. Grace loses a leg and has to learn to walk again
with a prosthetic; Pilgrim undergoes extensive surgery and starts exhibiting
dangerous behaviours. Grace's parents are Annie, a successful, workaholic
magazine editor, and Robert, a lawyer. They cope in different ways with their
daughter's accident and their relationship suffers.
The people charged with Pilgrims care are scared of his newly violent behaviour
and treat him cruelly. Annie refuses to have the animal put down, and searches
for a way to fix him. She hears of a horse whisperer called Tom Booker and
undertakes a marathon journey from New York to his home in Montana, dragging
Grace and Pilgrim with her.
Annie and Graces relationship is volatile, and Grace punishes her mother by
refusing to talk to her. In Montana, as Tom works with Pilgrim, Grace and Annie
slowly heal too, coming to love the ranch way of life. Grace gets the courage to
ride again and Annie starts to let go of her obsession with work. Annie and Tom
are drawn to each other, a fact which does not go unnoticed by Toms sister-in-
law, Diane. When Grace briefly returns to New York for a prosthetic fitting, Annie
and Tom are left alone on the ranch. In the few days they have together, they fall
deeply in love.
Grace returns to the ranch and, with Tom's help, attempts to ride Pilgrim. But the
horse is still unwilling and Tom is forced to undertake drastic measures, making
Pilgrim lie down and telling Grace to stand on him. The unusual therapy is
successful, and Pilgrim allows Grace to ride him. The two crash victims are
finally healed.
At their leaving party, Grace overhears a conversation between Diane and her
husband and learns about Tom and Annie's affair. Devastated, she rides out
alone into the wilderness. Tom rides after her and finds her surrounded by a
group of mustangs. Pilgrim is fighting a wild stallion. Tom saves Grace and
Pilgrim, but sacrifices himself: he is struck by the hooves of the stallion and killed.
Grace and Annie return to New York to rebuild their life with Robert. As a final
complication, Annie discovers that she is pregnant, giving birth to a baby with
Tom's blue eyes.