In Flicka, the latest adaptation of
Mary O'Hara's children's classic My Friend Flicka, Alison Lohman stars as a
teenager with a rebellious streak and a thirst for freedom that recalls the
Western settlers who first staked their claim on her Wyoming territory. Early
in the film, she encounters a black mustang, the wildest of the wild horses
that roam this landscape in diminishing numbers. Apparently, the girl and the
horse have a few things in common–that is, if the voiceover narration, the
dialogue, the parallel images, and Lohman's freewheeling personal essay on the
American West are to be believed. Can these kindred spirits be tamed? Or will
they at least lose enough of an edge to assuage the animals that have to live
with them every day?
Give Flicka credit for one thing: It
stays on message. Set against the gorgeous backdrop of a Wyoming mountain
range–a view this time unobstructed by the gay cowboys who so alarm family
audiences–the film offers up fantasy footage for every strong-willed girl who
ever straddled a saddle, and little more. Returning to the family ranch after
failing out of boarding school, Lohman runs into trouble with her father Tim
McGraw, who curses her iron-willed stubbornness, even though she's clearly
daddy's little girl. When Lohman finds a black mustang in the woods, facing off
against a ferocious mountain lion, she insists that McGraw let her take the
horse in and train her alongside the quarter horses. When the mustang causes
little but trouble, papa sells her to the rodeo, which prompts Lohman to take
drastic measures.
Though the hero has
changed genders from the novel and the TV show, Flicka doesn't do much to
embellish the girl-and-her-horse story or bring color to Lohman's generalized
rebellion. In fact, the film really doesn't do much at all, though the solid
performances and high production values supply some of the old-fashioned appeal
of this year's Lassie. And just as Lassie banked on money shots of the collie bounding in
slow motion across the countryside, Flicka comes alive whenever those herds of wild horses
gallop through mountain fields, shaking their lustrous, streaming manes like
Charlie's Angels. To a certain subset of the population, they're no doubt just
as rousing to behold.