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Flicka

I know that a film based on a book should be viewed as a separate work, yet I often find it hard not to get angry when the film is basically the book, excluding the best parts. That's actually not the case with Flicka, which is directed by Michael Mayer, and based on the very popular 1941 novel My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara.

It completely deviated from the novel, which I really find refreshing. First of all the main character is a teenage girl rather than a boy (girl power!), and although the plot itself is highly unoriginal, it's nevertheless a family film about horses, and how could you get that wrong?

Katy McLaughlin (Alison Lohman) has just returned from a boarding school to her family's ranch in Wyoming. Having left her final exam blank while she daydreamed about horses, she is glad to be back at the ranch, where her true aspirations lie.

While out riding one morning, she comes across a wild Mustang, which saves her life from a mountain lion. Katy sees a little bit of herself in this untamed beast and decides that she must catch this horse and make it her own, proving to her father once and for all that she is worthy of running the family ranch. Eventually she does lasso the Mustang (with the help of all the really good looking men in her life). Katy names the horse Flicka (meaning pretty girl in Swedish). This is a name which one of the (slightly older) ranch hands secretly calls 16 year old Katy. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that's a little creepy.

Against her father's orders, she sneaks into Flicka's corral late at night, getting kicked, bruised, and scarred by the Mustang, as she gains its trust. Throughout the film family tensions run high as Katy's father (Tim McGraw) decides to lay down the law, grounding her until she finishes her paper for school. In the meantime he looks to Katy's brother Howard (Ryan Kwanten) to help him with the ranch, oblivious to the fact that his son is struggling to tell him that he would much rather go to college than stay in Wyoming.

One night as Katy gets carried away and decides to ride Flicka out of the corral, Flicka knocks her flat on her back. Understandably incensed, and making a move most parents would've made, her father decides to call a rodeo owner who is looking for wild horses, and who is willing to pay a pretty penny for Flicka. In the most heated scene in the film Katy throws a tantrum over her dad selling the horse, Howard blurts out that he hates the ranch and wants to go to college, while we see the mother (who is usually all about flowers and rainbows) pissed off for the

first time in the film. All the while, Flicka is raising hell in the back of the truck. Then in a scene reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz, when Toto is taken away by Dorothy's evil neighbor, Katy sobbingly runs after the truck in which Flicka is being hauled to the rodeo.

After hearing that Flicka is being mistreated, Katy and her brother come up with a plan to win Flicka back, which involves Katy dressing like a boy and risking getting her butt kicked by the wild horse one more time.

More than a movie about horses, Flicka is a film about a teenage girl who feels misunderstood by the world, and a father who's struggling to come to terms with the fact that the roles have been reversed and it is his daughter that's inherited his cowboy dreams, rather than his son. I must admit, movies about people falling in love with horses (or falling in love with animals in general) are usually a little cheesy for my taste, although Lassie did bring a tear to my eye. What I do respect about this film is that it doesn't take itself too seriously, and acknowledges the blatant symbolism which is straight out of a high school English class. It's not a deeply moving film, but the underlying themes of unconditional love, freedom, and the closeness of family are appropriate for the audience the film is targeting.

Alison Lohman does a decent job of playing an angst ridden 16 year old girl at 25. While Maria Bello is the push-over, loving mother we all wish we had. Tim McGraw, who we noticed had acting chops in Friday Night Lights, did a good job playing the paranoid, stubborn father. Oh yeah, and kudos to the director of photography J. Michael Muro (the cinematography was pretty darn beautiful). While not a theatrical masterpiece, Flicka is a decent family film, which highly exceeded my expectations.

The DVD's special features included audio commentary by Director Michael Mayer, Tim McGraw's music video of the song "My Little Girl," deleted scenes, and a gag reel.

Movie Grade: B-
Special Features Grade: B
Overall Grade: B