SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
Five years after the end of the Civil War, Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd crosses paths with a 10-year-old girl taken by the Kiowa people. Forced to return to her aunt and uncle, Kidd agrees to escort the child across the harsh and unforgiving plains of Texas. However, the long journey soon turns into a fight for survival as the traveling companions encounter danger at every turn – both human and natural.
SPOILERS AHEAD
News of the World Plot Summary and Synopsis
In 1870, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a former member of the Confederate Army who served in the 3rd Texas Infantry, makes a living traveling town to town reading newspapers for the populace for ten cents per person. Following an evening of news reading, setting out for his next location, Kidd finds an overturned wagon on the road. Investigating, he finds the body of a Black soldier and a young White girl named Johanna, dressed in Native American clothing. After an encounter with a Union Army patrol, Kidd is instructed to take the girl to Union officials at a checkpoint in a town up the road where they will sort out her Bureau of Indian Affairs paperwork and return her to her surviving family. Reluctantly, Kidd acquiesces to the request.
At the checkpoint, Kidd is informed that the Bureau of Indian Affairs representative won’t be available for three months. Seeking shelter with a former Confederate infantryman, Kidd reads the news and upon returning, begrudgingly accepts responsibility for taking her to her surviving family. As they set out they have difficulty communicating. This is compounded more when Kidd is confronted by three ex-Confederate soldiers turned criminals who try to purchase the girl from Kidd. He refuses, but the three men pursue, leading to a shootout in the wilderness during which Johanna and Kidd learn to work together to survive.
Next, they encounter a radical band of militia working to “cleanse” the county from “outsiders”. Kidd is told to read the approved news from the town’s leader, but instead reads about a group of coal miners who rally against the man responsible for putting their lives in jeopardy. Kidd’s story incites civil unrest and ultimately results in Johanna gunning down the town’s leader and rescuing Kidd. In the aftermath, Kidd and Johanna initially join a wagon train bound for the railroad line then veer off to locate Johanna’s surviving family. During the journey the wagon is destroyed, leaving Johanna and Kidd to continue on foot until they find a group of Kiowa from whom Johanna is able to obtain a horse.
Kidd and Johanna eventually reach her aunt and uncle’s farmstead, the former revealing that Johanna’s parents had struck out on their own and moved to the hill country where the land would be cheaper; this led to them being killed in a Kiowa raid. Kidd reluctantly leaves Johanna with them and returns to San Antonio. His wife, Maria Luisa Betancourt Kidd, died from cholera in 1865. Now without any kin, he visits the mission where she is buried, and mournfully leaves his wedding ring and a locket on her grave.
Kidd then rides back to the village where he left Johanna, where he finds her tied to a pole, her aunt and uncle explaining that she refused to work and would instead run off. Asking forgiveness, Kidd tells Johanna (in Kiowa) that she belongs with him. Johanna accepts; her aunt and uncle let them go.
The Ending
In an epilogue, Kidd reads the papers in another town, with a joyful Johanna now part of the routine, helping out on sound effects, and bearing a new name: Johanna Kidd.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).