MovieChat Forums > The Horse Whisperer (1998) Discussion > Robert, Annie and Grace today

Robert, Annie and Grace today


I absolutely love making up stories about characters in movies and where they are today. So here goes:

Annie and Robert: After painstakingly leaving Tom behind, Annie had a lot of time to think about her marriage to her husband on the way back to New York from Montana. Though she loved Tom and it was hard for her to leave, she knew that for the sake of her marriage, she'd need to fight for it. When she got back, Annie and Tom got hooked up with a great marriage counseler and worked on their marriage, instead of going the divorce route. They now have a great marriage and decided to live permanently out in the country, away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

Grace: Loved the ranch life so much that every summer, her and her horse would go and live with the Booker family every summer. She graduated in 2002 and decided to go to a college near the Booker ranch and stayed there while in college. When she was 20, she went to a dance with the Bookers and met a wonderful cowboy. They dated for a year, when they got married. Since Grace had been going to Montana every summer as a teenager and when she moved there for college, she knew that Montana was her home and her life. It wasn't all that hard for her to fall into being a rancher's wife. Grace and her husband now have two small children and Robert and Annie come out and visit every summer for about a month. But New York is their home and where they've decided to stay.

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I love fanfics continuing the films also! Glad I read yours; it's interesting. Here's mine; I posted it on another thread, but I'll post it here. It's long, but I hope you enjoy...

Divorce Whispers, my take of The Horse Whisperer sequel:

Annie, still weeping from time to time, drives back to NYC and arrives 3 days later. She first drops Pilgrim off at the stable and the vets give Annie a welcome hug home. Grace is there and hugs both Pilgrim and Annie. Robert is not there; he's back in NYC.

Annie and Grace stay for another day, then head back to NYC. Grace is getting ready to start high school and is once again enjoying having her mom back. Grace asks if Tom is all right with Annie leaving and Annie's eyes fill with tears, but she says yes.

Once they enter the city, Annie hugs Grace and promises she'll be there for her more since Annie rather feels that she hadn't been a great mom and is feeling guilty.

They come home to their NYC apartment and Robert kind of doesn't look too happy to see Annie. Turns out Robert was secretly hoping Annie would stay out in Montana and also secretly despises Tom, despite his polite exterior.

"So, where's your cowboy lover?" Robert asks sarcastically.

"Robert...please...can we see someone...a counselor?" Annie asks.

Despite Robert dragging his feet, they do see a counselor that summer.

Grace starts high school and for a while, things between Annie and Robert seem to be improving. But by late September, things are growing distant between them again.

Also, Annie is getting started on being a writer; she's written several short stories for magazines and things are starting to take off for her.

Grace makes several new friends at her new high school and she has gotten used to her artificial leg. She's also growing up; Annie helps her shop for a bra.

In early October, Grace invites three friends over to the upstate NY house, but two of them don't get along, so they leave and Grace just decided to have the one friend from NYC stay over.

More and more, now it's Annie and Grace coming up to upstate NY. Annie sometimes rides with Grace; other times, Grace rides by herself or with her upstate NY friend. Grace still misses Judith, but has been healing from that and besides, is busy with high school.

In late October, Robert finally does come up for one weekend since a bunch of families are going on a fall hayride and Robert wants to keep up the united family front. It's kind of the calm before the storm.

In late November, some of Annie's relatives, including her mom come over as well as a brother of Robert's. It's a dramatic Thanksgiving as it's revealed that while Annie was driving back from NYC, Robert had a full-blown affair to retaliate against Annie's "affair."

Annie goes for a walk with her mom, then bursts into tears and tells her mom about it...the miserable marriage to Robert and her own temptation with Tom.

Turns out that it's the end of the marriage since Robert really has no intention of dropping the affair nor does he feel any remorse at all since he justifies it as "getting even" for Annie's "affair." Robert leaves and moves into another apartment in the city.

Meanwhile, back in Montana, the Bookers have their share of drama...Ellen Booker has been keeping in touch with Annie. It turns out that Diane, long ago, had a full-blown affair with Tom and that the oldest son, Joe is actually Tom's child (I notice how in the film, Joe does look like Tom right down to the blond hair).

Diane and her husband have a huge blow-up, also over the holidays and poor Joe is devastated. Ellen dresses both Tom and Diane down. Tom's brother nearly kills Tom, but Ellen holds them back. Turns out that Ellen always suspected, but now it's been confirmed.

Diane, despite her marriage being damaged, decides to stay with her husband because being small-towners, they don't want to be the subject of small-town gossip, esp. since they live in a rather conservative community.

Joe runs away at one point and swiping money from Tom's wallet, buys himself a plane ticket and flies up to NYC and sees Annie and Grace, who are staying in upstate NY again for the Christmas holidays.

At first, Joe tells them that he has permission to come, so Annie and Grace let him stay. Joe confides in them and is crying at this point over his mom and uncle's treachery. Grace hugs him.

Diane eventually finds out that Joe is in NYC and two days before X-mas, calls Annie and is ready to blast and blame her for Joe's being there, but Ellen gets on and stops Diane's rant. Annie apologizes, says she didn't know, then asks what's going on there. Ellen says she'll fly there to pick up Joe, that she'll explain then.

Ellen does and talks Joe into coming back home. Joe does go back to Montana; Annie and Grace hug him goodbye and wish him good luck.

"Wow...and we thought our family had problems," Grace tells Annie once Joe is gone. That night, X-mas eve, Grace, Annie, her siblings, her mom and aunt are sitting around the fire and exchange gifts and eat and talk a little about the holidays and the messy Booker situation.

"So...did Joe kiss you?" a friend of Grace asks.

Grace shrugs, then says something like, "He was kind of mixed up and upset, so I really didn't pay that any mind..."

"Funny how family messes can conjure up weird revealings," Annie's brother says. "Like you actually having that fling with the rancher." They kind of laugh some; even Annie manages a weak smile since her own heart is still healing from the divorce.

Annie's very, very glad now that she's not in the middle of that Booker mess since she's had enough drama in her own life this past year.

Later in the year, Tom dies after a fight with his brother and Diane. Annie and Grace fly out that spring to the funeral and Annie definitely comes to a closure in her stay out there. She and Grace come back to NYC, where Annie finalizes her divorce from Robert, who re-marries soon after.

Annie also has published her first book, which becomes a bestseller. She writes more books until she realizes her dream of being a writer. Grace finishes high school, graduates with honors, and becomes a veterinarian and lives just outside the city. She and Grace share a wonderful mom-daughter bond that the trip to the ranch actually solidified.

It's later, when Grace is in her early twenties, that Annie meets John Clasky (from Spanglish, for those who've seen that film), who is divorced, is a successful chef, his two kids, and has moved back to NYC from LA. John had just gone thru a messy divorce from the awful Deborah (who reminds me of Robert), so John and Annie take things slowly.

They date a few years, fall deeply in love and marry. Grace, who's always wanted siblings, is happy to have a stepsister and stepbrother, esp. close to her age and Annie, in a way, has a larger family now, since Annie had always dreamed of a large family.

Annie, Grace, Pilgrim, John, Bernice, and George are all much happier today.


That's my take on a possible sequel to this film. I've seen Spanglish and I have this idea that Annie and John Clasky would be wonderful for each other; they have quite a bit in common.

The two films are actually quite similar, so I wrote an analysis of the films here at: http://cnj1.livejournal.com/6130.html. Hope you all check this link out and hope most of you have seen Spanglish, another wonderful film.

What do you think?

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BTW, if Grace loved the ranch, she could be a rancher herself, not just a rancher's wife. Many ranchers are women today; that wouldn't be hard for Grace at all.

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Anyone else have any sequel ideas? I love reading them as well as writing my own.

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Anyone else have any new ideas for sequels? They're fun to read.

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Grace might have ended up with Tom's young nephew.

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Possibly...if Joe decided he was a city person and moved to NYC...esp. if he ran away from the Booker ranch for good and stayed with Annie and Grace for the rest of his growing up years. Grace and Joe didn't seem to have much in common, esp. in the film, though.

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I don't know that they had nothing in common -ok he was young, but his crush on Grace was one of so many poignant moments in the film.

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I'm not sure that it was a real crush as it was just fascination with the Macleans in general. I think he was fascinated by the exotic, sophisticated Annie and Grace.

Joe had never really met anyone from outside his own small town/farm and had never ventured anywhere and might have secretly been longing for something more in life.

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