The Movie: Flicka

Flicka Flicka is a heart wrenching movie about the love of family, nature, and horses. This movie shows you the summer of a ranchers daughter. Katy McLauglin (Alison Lohman) is the teenage daughter of a horse rancher who is looking to hand over the reins of the family business. While her family is on the ranch, Katy is studing at a private school feeling like her own kind of misfit. One day, while out riding, Katy finds a beautiful black mustang and instantly feels an emotional connection with the wild horse.
Katy begs her father, Rob McLaughlin (Tim McGraw), to let her keep the animal but he is convinced that the mustang would be bad for both his thoroughbred horses and his daughter. But Katy is certain she can break the strong-willed mustang and make her a champion. Katy then names her Flicka, a name meaning ” beautiful, young girl”. As she struggles to tame the headstrong Flicka, she also tries to prove to her father that she knows horses as well as he does and that she’s every bit as capable of running the ranch as her brother. The fight for respect and the love of an animal will make you want a ranchers life.
And a beautiful horse named Flicka. Flicka shows you the journey that a young teenage girl takes to earn the respect that she rightfully deserves. Katys story is like many stories of women over the years. The fight to be seen as an equal and not as a servent. As we all may know in the United States men had the right to vote long before women did. Women fought for the chance to vote for years. Some, like Susan B. Anthony, were put in jail or shunned for fighting for this right. It took tell World War I for women to recieve this right, but with a couple restrictions.

Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. She was brought up in a Quaker family with long activist traditions. Early in her life she developed a sense of justice. After teaching for fifteen years, she became active in temperance. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at temperance meetings. This experience led her to join the women’s rights movement in 1852. Soon after, she dedicated her life to woman suffrage. Ignoring the cruel works and abuse, Anthony traveled and lectured across the nation for the vote.
She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, the right for women to own their own property and keep their earnings, and she advocated for women’s labor organizations. In 1900, Anthony persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women. Anthony, who never married, was aggressive and compassionate by nature. She had a strong mind and a great ability to fight for what she believed in. She remained active until her death on March 13, 1906. In the movie, Flicka, the McLaughlin family fights to keep their beloved ranch.
With the trouble to pay the bills, big time bankers have come to the ranch hoping to talk the family into selling the ranch and all the land with it. With the knowledge that selling means the desturction of their lovely home and the land surrounding it, they fight to make all the money they can. Needing the cash, Rob McLaughlin sees the perfect chance to earn money and get his daughter away from the parasite that she calls Flicka. Rob calls up the head chairman for the local rodeo and makes the deal to sell off the beautiful mustang. When Katy finds out that her horse was sold she’s heartbroken and furious.
But she’s not about to give up. With the hope to get her horse back Katy enters the Bucking Broncos contest in the rodeo in hope to win and use the money to buy back her horse. After realizing that it wasn’t going to be as simple as she thought she takes her horse and rides her into the woods. With night coming and a serious storm, Katy and Flicka are in trouble. After finally getting onto some of their land Katy feels safe. Just as she was about to ride herself and Ficka the rest of the way home they are attacked by a mountain lion. Flicka is able to scare away the cat but sustains major injuries in the process.
Once found Katy is brought home but has fallen sick. While Katy fights for her life, Flicka fights for hers. Then Rob decides that it isn’t fair for an animal to suffer. Then Katy speaks the most heartbreaking line in the story saying “it’s ok daddy, you can kill us”. The next morning Katys temperature has broken and Flicka is safe and healing. The two found each other at the moment of need and have beaten all the odds. This beautiful movie distributed by 20th Century Fox, shows viewers what it takes for a woman to fight for her right and what she loves.