Promise the Moon (1997)

• 74%
• 1997
• Adventure
• Drama
• TV Movie
• Western
• Ken Jubenvill
• Henry Czerny
• Shawn Ashmore
• Colette Stevenson

It's 1920 in the town of Butler Hills on the Canadian prairies. Sensing his own mortality following an accident, Wilbur Bennett, owner of the Four Arrows cattle ranch, sends Royal Leckner, his chief ranch hand, to fetch his fifteen year old son, Leviatus Bennett, from the Chicago Sanitarium, where he's been housed since he was an infant, the ranch to be his upon Wilbur's death. In Chicago, Royal finds the reason that Levi was originally sent away: he is deaf, and with the poor treatment at the sanitarium is also virtually mute and thus considered slow, with another patient, an Ojibwa woman with a scarred eye named Sophie Twelvetrees, keeping him under her protective wing. Royal feels he has no other option but to take Sophie with them as well for Levi's sake. Upon arrival back in Butler Hills, Royal not only finds that Wilbur has died, but has left him in charge of the ranch and of Levi, with anything happening to Levi meaning that the ranch reverts to the ownership of the Dominion of Canada. None of this news sits well with either Jimmy Bennett, Wilbur's irresponsible brother, who felt the ranch should belong to him, it which he planned to sell to the highest bidder, or Sir Robert Butler, the unscrupulous town banker, who is trying to buy up all the agricultural land around Butler Hills for a song. Helping Royal manage, initially much to his consternation, is Jane Makepeace, a British national who is escaping a bad situation both in Britain and with what was her "employment" in Canada working for Sir Robert. Needing to pay back the bank loan by season's end becoming more difficult with dropping cattle prices while trying to make Levi a true Canadian farmer/rancher, Royal and Jane also have to contend with both Sir Robert and Jimmy, who will do whatever it takes to make sure they fail to get out of Four Arrows what they want.