Blue Rodeo

Kris Kristofferson plays a rancher named Owen Whister, with a big old dog named Hopeful and a new lady neighbor, Ann-Margret, whom he greets while riding up on a horse like a polite cowboy out of a Gary Cooper movie: "I live right over yonder, ma'am, give me a holler if you get into any trouble." She's just out of a bad marriage and has a teenage son who was rendered almost completely deaf in a fall (he jumped into a swimming pool to avoid an argument between his parents, but did he realize it was empty of water?). TV-movie treats every obstacle (marriage, deafness, courtship, mother-son relationships) like a speed-bump, something to conquer with love and persistence. The son is 'almost' deaf, therefore he can speak clearly and converse with Ann-Margret so that she doesn't have to spend the whole movie signing (and when she does, it looks like something she might have picked up one afternoon at a PTA meeting). The romance between the grown-ups is sweet if false, like everything else in "Blue Rodeo".