Flicka (2006)
Directed by Michael Mayer
Written by Mark Rosenthal, Lawrence Konner
Starring Alison Lohman, Tim McGraw, Maria Bello, Ryan Kwanten
Release Date October 20th, 2006
Published October 22nd, 2006
My Friend Flicka starring Roddy McDowell is a family movie staple. The story of a troubled boy and the horse who saved his life and inspired him is a staple of the family movie genre, a story reformed and retold in a number of different ways. More than 50 years later Flicka returns to the big screen, a different gender at it's center, but the same basic story of family, growing up and beautiful horses in place.
Empty and uninspired, this new Flicka is, thankfully, not a total rehash of the original film but is not much of an improvement either.
16 year old Katie (Alison Lohman) has just flunked her end of year exam. Rather than writing the essay required of her, Katie spent 2 hours staring out the window dreaming of her horses back on her family farm. She is returning home when the test is over and will once again get to feel the wind in her hair on the back of a horse, her favorite feeling in the world.
Katie returns home to a loving family that includes her father; Rob (Tiim Mcraw), Mom; Nell (Maria Bello) and older brother; Howard (Ryan Kwanten). Her father soon finds out that she has failed the important test and the testy dynamic of this father-daughter relationship is set. Despite dad's admonitions, the first chance Katie gets she is on the back of a horse and hitting the backwoods trails.
It is on this backwoods jaunt that Katie comes across a wild black mustang that she comes to call Flicka. Her father, fearing a mustang that might rattle his domesticated quarter horses, orders Katie to stay away from the mustang. However, when the mustang rescues Katie from a cougar attack, he is brought to the farm. Can Katie train Flicka and come to ride her or will dad sell Flicka to a rodeo manager (Nick Searcy) who has developed a dangerous new sport around wild horses.
If you think that the horse's wild, untamed spirit matches that of our heroine, well, of course your right. That is the most basic distillation of the plot. The horse and Katie are one in the same and that is the movie's fundamental premise. That, along with dad coming to understand his rebellious daughter and Katie beginning to grow up and reign in her wild ways make up a very simple three act structure as predictable as the alphabet.
Director Michael Mayer, whose Home At The End of the World was a lovely paean to a unique dysfunctional family, directs Flicka as if he were a factory film director his whole career. The film is machine made and polished, lifted from typical family movie molds and reaching theaters seemingly untouched from screenplay to screen.
Little girls love horses and Flicka bursts at the seams with loving shots of horses in stride. Flicka herself is a beautiful black horse with a gorgeous untamed mane and a wild spirit. Scenes of Alison Lohman riding Flicka framed against the mountain ranges of Wyoming with the sun beaming down are truly splendid images that will dazzle any horse lover.
Country star Tim McGraw acquits himself well as Katie's strict but loving father. His contribution to the films soundtrack however, the single My Little Girl, is one of the most gut wrenchingly sappy tunes this side of Barry Manilow. My Little Girl is the first song in McGraw's career that he has written and produced himself, he may want to consider never doing that again.
Rote family movie conventions rendered against a lovely sunlit, mountain background, Flicka is quite attractive but still an empty vessel. As the coming of age story of a troubled young girl; Flicka hits all of the expected notes and hits them about as well as they can be hit. If you can endure predictable, manufactured family movie devices meant to elicit tears and hugs, then Flicka is the movie for you.
