| Bilgi :Life is full of weird little coincidences, and one of the most recent is the fact that two animal movies produced in 1943, both starring the young Roddy McDowall, have been remade and released to American theatres in just the past few months. And both of the remakes have reduced their titles to just the animal's name. A few months back, Lassie Come Home, about the famous collie, became simply Lassie. And now, My Friend Flicka, about a wild untamed mustang, is simply Flicka. The dog-and-pony act ends there, though. Whereas Lassie took place decades ago, in its original setting, Flicka has been moved up to the 21st century. And the boy that McDowall played so long ago—the lad who, as they used to say, became a man by taking responsibility for one of his father's horses and looking after it—has become a girl who is less interested in proving her maturity than in protecting the horse from the social and economic forces that would harm its wild spirit. 
Alison Lohman as Katy, who becomes enamored with a wild mustang she found
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Katy McLaughlin, for that is the girl's name, is played by Alison Lohman, who was 25 when the film was shot but is quite convincing as a teenager, just as she was in White Oleander and Matchstick Men. (One is reminded of how Michael J. Fox played high schoolers like Marty McFly well into his late 20s.) Katy is failing at the private boarding school she attends, because she looks out the window and daydreams about horses when she ought to be writing exams. Times are tough for her family, back on the ranch in Wyoming, so when her father Rob (Tim McGraw) hears that Katy might have to repeat the year at school, he is more than a little upset. And then the mustang comes into their lives. Katy's father, who regards wild horses such as these as "parasites" on his farm, captures the animal in an exciting sequence, in which the wild horse stirs up the other, ordinarily tame horses and almost leads them off a cliff. Rob puts the horse in a pen, and Katy, who is home for the summer, sneaks out at night to visit the animal. She identifies very strongly with the horse, which she names "Flicka"—after the Swedish word for "pretty girl"—and just in case we miss the connection, she declares at one point, "We're the same!" 
Katy and her father Tom (Tim McGraw) enjoy the view from their Wyoming ranch
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The screenplay—by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, whose credits include the private-girls-school drama Mona Lisa Smile and the remakes of Mighty Joe Young and Planet of the Apes—is unfortunately prone to those sorts of clichés, both in terms of the underlying story structure and in terms of the surface dialogue. Katy has a brother, Howard (Ryan Kwanten), who wants to go to college but is afraid to say so because his dad expects him to stay on the ranch that has been in the family for generations. Rob is a stern father whose heart is just waiting to be thawed —after acting up a storm as the alcoholic and abusive dad in Friday Night Lights, McGraw keeps his emotions much more in check here, perhaps too much—and money is so tight that he even considers selling the ranch. And, at one point, Katy has to pretend to be a boy in order to carry out her plan to secure both Flicka's freedom and the farm. 
The McLaughlin family…Katy, Nell (Maria Bello), Howard (Ryan Kwanten) and Tom
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And then there is the dialogue, which contains a few isolated clunkers but arguably reaches its lowest point when Katy, Howard and another girl plan their scheme. After voting two-to-one in favor of Katy's plan, one of the girls says, "The people have spoken!" To which Howard replies, "No, the inmates have taken over the asylum." To which the other girl says, "Walk it like you talk it!" Wow, three hackneyed phrases in a row—and even in context, the third one doesn't make all that much sense! Also, because the film stars country singer Tim McGraw as Katy's dad, it tends to go a bit too far in plugging bits of the soundtrack album into the movie. When Katy approaches Flicka and sings a few lines of one song to her, you find yourself thinking that it sounds less like the folk song or lullaby that a person might actually use to soothe a horse, and more like the opening hook of a radio-friendly pop ballad. Lest I sound too down on the film, it does have its merits. Beautiful scenery, a mildly quirky performance or two—especially courtesy of Maria Bello, as Katy's mom—and a few scenes that hint at the continuing passion in the lives of Katy's parents all contribute to a reasonably enjoyable family flick. But the dullness of the script, and the way it extols restlessness, wildness, and the freedom to be what you want—even though the whole point of the story, as with horse riding itself, is about finding the right balance between freedom and control—is ultimately unsatisfying. There once was a time when filmmakers knew the morals to their stories, and were prepared to challenge people to be better than they are. Not so much nowadays, though; this version of Flicka would fit right in with the "follow your heart" school of thought that has been common to, say, Disney films of the past 20 years. |
