essay from the movie flicka

The Words of Katy's Essay from the Movie "Flicka"

I live on top of the World in the never summer mountains of Wyoming, 8,000 feet closer to the sky. In my mountains, when spring finally comes to save me from a perpetual winter the world comes to life again and I remember what it is I'm here for. I'm the only daughter in along line of ranchers, and when we let our horses out for the first time every spring, I love to watch them rediscover the world. I can see in them an expression of my own restless spirit. Charged with an appetite for adventure they take to the land without hesitation. They are pure power. When I see them running wild I often think of the first horses and how they were the true pioneers of America.

The stories we here of how the west was one were all lies. The history of the west was written by the horse. Wherever a settler left his foot print there was a hoof print right beside it. Man came further and further west to stake their claims on the great American wilderness, but they encountered a strength that could not be tamed: wild horses. The settlers called them parasites that could strip the land and starve their own herd. They couldn't domesticate them so they destroyed them. Isolated and hungry they were on their way to disappearing from the face of the earth. Sometimes when the lie disappears an after image remains, just for a moment mustangs are an after image. No better than ghosts, hardly there at all. No one really wants them not ranchers, not city people. That's their destiny; let them disappear once and for all with all the other misfits, loners and relics of the wilderness no one cares about anymore. Lucky for us a few mustangs survived, hidden away in the mountains. We need to protect them for them, for they are the hope for some kind of living memory of what the promise of America used to be, and could be again.

I believer there is a force in this world that lives beneath the surface; something primitive and wild that awakens when we need an extra push just to survive, like wildflowers that bloom after a wildfire burns the forest black. Most people are afraid of it and keep it buried deep inside them, but there will always be a few people who have the courage to love what is untamed inside of us; one of those men is my father. There was once a time when Americans came west to discover their destiny. Today they seem to move around in every which where, restless and unsettled, but I think they're still looking for the same thing: a place where they can be optimistic about the future, a place that helps them be who they really want to be, so they can feel that this life makes since. A place where they can feel what I feel when I'm riding Flicka, because when we're riding all I feel is…free.

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Movie Review | 'Flicka'

Whoa, Girl: Taming a Wild Child

By Manohla Dargis

• Oct. 20, 2006

Girl meets horse yet again in “Flicka,” an entertainingly ridiculous update of Mary O’Hara’s 1941 children’s novel, “My Friend Flicka.” Alison Lohman stars as Katy McLaughlin (a boy named Ken in the original story), a boarding-school student on the verge of flunking out because her head is in the clouds, where she has apparently been huffing pure oxygen since last semester.

That, at least, might explain why this pouty miss with an unruly mane and a thing for horses spends much of her summer break flouncing around the male help with jail-bait insouciance, sassing her parents (the country-music star Tim McGraw and a wide-smiling Maria Bello) and almost killing the object of her sublimated desire.

Set on a horse ranch in a spectacularly pristine, mountainous swath of Wyoming, far from the madding crowd and any vestige of polluting contemporary life, “Flicka” looks as fetchingly unreal as a presidential campaign commercial designed by Martha Stewart. Ms. Bello’s ripely amusing performance, with its blend of no-fuss professionalism and twinkling-eye intensity, adds to the strikingly thin air of unreality, whether her character (whom Mr. McGraw risibly calls Mama) has rustled up wild gooseberry pancakes with crème fraîche for breakfast or is gardening in the afternoon sun with a flashing grin and an impeccably coiffed fall of hair (no ponytail) worthy of a Wisteria Lane hausfrau. She’s not desperate, but she very well may be stoned.

Ms. Bello is welcome company, particularly because her presence among all the cowboy hats and manure summons memories of David Cronenberg’s “History of Violence,” an equally otherworldly if considerably superior and knowing fiction about the clash between old-fashioned values and modern-day pragmatism. Here, Katy wants to live free or at least break the beautiful black mustang she happens on while out riding. For his part, her father, a man of few words, simple thoughts and no discernible personality, wants Katy to go back to daydreaming in school, not yet realizing that her hunky brother, Howard (Ryan Kwanten), who likes to lounge around with a bare chest and perfectly fitted cutoff jeans, would sooner become an Abercrombie & Fitch model than take over the ranch.

What’s a family to do? Not a whole lot, as it happens. Directed by Michael Mayer and written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, “Flicka” is padded with minor incident and a wealth of beauty shots that inspire intense vacation-home envy, but the parts never cohere dramatically. Mr. Mayer dutifully draws lines between Katy’s efforts to tame her wild horse and her father’s more cumbersome attempts to corral her, but he can’t spin this metaphoric hay into gold. What he does do very nicely, however, aided and abetted by an expression of unfettered ecstasy on Ms. Lohman’s face that gives her the aspect of St. Teresa of Avila, is confirm that nothing should ever come between a girl and her horse, especially a saddle.

“Flicka” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It has some very mild language.

Opens today nationwide.

Directed by Michael Mayer; written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, based on the novel “My Friend Flicka” by Mary O’Hara; director of photography, J. Michael Muro; edited by Andrew Marcus; music by Aaron Zigman; production designer, Sharon Seymour; produced by Gil Netter; released by 20th Century Fox. Running time: 110 minutes.

WITH: Alison Lohman (Katy McLaughlin), Tim McGraw (Rob McLaughlin), Maria Bello (Nell McLaughlin) and Ryan Kwanten (Howard McLaughlin).

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Flicka (2006)

Dove review.

“Flicka” is a timeless tale of a family who struggles to make ends meet as they run the family ranch. The story centers around an already strained father/daughter relationship that is exacerbated by the introduction of a mustang whom Katie affectionately names “Flicka.”

While Katie is extremely disobedient in the majority of the film, there are also severe consequences. She is punished by her parents and also suffers a near death experience as a direct result of her actions. In the end, the family comes together and reconciles their differences as they learn to communicate their wants and desires with each other in a gentler, more appropriate manner.

This film has some very good lessons about respect, obedience and family expectations.

Dove Rating Details

Girl falls from horse causing injuries and bruises; horse attacked by cougar with much blood.

Boy-Girl Kiss

D-5; H-1; B-1; A-1; Frickin-1

Girl in bikini; boys swim without shirts.

Girl is disrespectful toward her parents, but there are consequences and important lessons learned.

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• Young Katy claims a wild horse as her own -- an effort to prove to her father that she is capable of taking over the family horse ranch one day.
• Coming-of-age story set in the mountain vistas, A headstrong 16-year-old Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. Katy then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope. — devine308
• Rob McLaughlin runs his family horse ranch with a firm hand. That includes his grooming gentle, smart, mundane son, Howard, as his successor, without bothering to find out that's his daily nightmare, while he dreams of a writing career. His sassy sister, Katy, was sent off to a boarding school the family can ill afford. During a holiday, she discovers an even more free-spirited wild mustang and decides to tame it, hoping it may help to convince Rob she's fit for ranching. — KGF Vissers
• Katy is the only daughter of a rancher who hopes to take over the family ranch someday. Her father, however, hopes that her older brother Howard will take over the running of the ranch. After failing to complete an essay for her high school exam, Katy returns home for the holidays to face her father's disapproval. Her redemption comes in the form of a black Mustang filly which Katy encounters after a close call with a mountain lion. Katy sets out to capture this Mustang who she names Flicka in an effort to prove to her father that she is capable of assuming the responsibilities of running the ranch. Katy's father does not approve of her actions, however, and after Katy deliberately disobeys him by training and riding Flicka behind his back, Flicka is sold to the rodeo for use in the wild-horse race. Katy succeeds in rescuing her beloved horse with the assistance of her brother by posing as a man and entering the race, she then takes Flicka and rides towards home. Another encounter with the mountain lion on the way back to the ranch results in Flicka being critically injured and Katy becoming seriously ill after being caught in a major storm. Her family find her and take her home while her father returns to put Flicka down due to the seriousness of her injuries. Katy hears a gunshot whilst she is battling the fever and assumes Flicka has been killed. A few days later, Katy's fever breaks; however, she is depressed at her horse's assumed death. Katy's father calls her downstairs and into the yard where Katy discovers that Flicka is alive and well, the shot she had heard was aimed at the mountain lion. The film ends with Katy and Flicka riding together through the Wyoming mountains.

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