Lucky U Ranch

Lucky-U-Ranch is a story about two young people who develop a friendship while embroiled in severe family trauma and dysfunction. Junior is an overweight, bullied kid who dreams of being Joe Friday on Dragnet, while suffering daily at the hands of his cruel classmates. The young Melissa arrives at the trailer park with a different set of woes. Her parents are raging alcoholics and they are basically on the run. Together, the two young people find shelter in each other's company and they teach each other: She teaches him how to hit a baseball, and he teachers her how to play jacks (a wonderful gender reversal for that time period). The young people who play the characters of Junior and Melissa are fantastic and the dialogue and emotion in his story is spot on!

Lucky U Ranch is a treasure of a coming-of-age movie. Though it's set a decade after World War II, the story is timeless. Junior is a bullied kid who feels that life isn't worth living. He lives in a trashy trailer court in Tucson where his single mother works long hours to support them. He's overweight, he's the butt of jokes in school, and he can't hit a baseball to save his life. And then Melissa arrives in a shiny Airstream trailer and she and her bickering parents park right next door. This is the start of a relationship that is so much more than a first love. These two young people save each other, in a way that's so magical that it takes your breath away. The ending left me in happy tears.

The acting in this movie is so good that I lost myself in the experience, and I fell in love with the young leads and the stellar supporting cast. The director captured the sparse beauty of the high American desert and framed each shot with such skill that I got goosebumps several times. This is a lovely film. I highly recommend this movie.