More Than a Miracle

Plot

The film follows the misadventures of Isabella, a beautiful and temperamental village girl played by Sophia Loren, and Rodrigo, an ill-tempered Spanish prince portrayed by Omar Sharif. The prince is a risk taker who avoids his parents' wishes for him to marry. The movie opens with the prince trying to tame a wild horse in the courtyard while his mother, the queen, asks when he will do as his father wishes and marry. Seven princesses wait to dine with him so he can choose a bride, but the prince is uninterested and rides off, leaving the palace. While riding in the countryside, he is thrown from the horse and loses it. Walking to a hill, he sees a monk flying in the air above laughing children. The monk descends and tells him it is time to find a wife, then gives him a donkey and some flour, instructing him to ask someone to make seven dumplings. On his way back, he finds his horse in a field where Isabella is putting vegetables she has pulled from the ground into a bag. The prince claims the horse is his; she says it is hers. They accuse each other of being thieves. When the king's guards pass by looking for the prince, he grabs Isabella and forces her to hide in the bushes with him until they leave, then tries to kiss her. She pushes him away. She takes his hiding as proof he is a thief and insists the horse is hers. Tired of this, the prince pushes her into the dirt, throws her supplies off the horse, and jumps on it, but the horse throws him off. Isabella laughs, saying, 'See, he doesn't know you.' She cleans her scrapes and takes her crops home, with the prince following and riding circles around her the whole way.