Urban Country

Sweet, sincere, and ultimately quite moving (to those who can handle its leisurely pace), this surprisingly poignant movie transcends its clichéd coming-of-age plotline and simplistic characters. Viewers will know that Faith is a City Girl on the Wrong Path from the very first moment she's seen on a skateboard with glitter high-tops, intent on breaking into a stadium to tag the stands (it's art, not vandalism, she tells her skater-boy posse, but just try telling the security guards that). One implausible trip to juvie later, and Faith's ready to split the city scene to spend more time with her ranch-owner mom in the great outdoors, a character-building tool in drama since time immemorial. Mucking out stalls and currying horses, it seems, is the key to turning this reckless teen into a caring adult. 

It sounds very trite, and it could have been, if not for the talented actors and sympathetic script, which breathes life into the clichés. Faith actually does care about her mom, and soon, about the ranch passed down through her family's generations and the more-or-less adopted sons that are helping Anna run it. As Faith slowly transforms from a smart-mouthed punk into a young woman with courage and grit who earns the affection she gets from others, sensitive viewers may find themselves tearing up a little -- and rooting for Faith and the ranch to find their footing. Though teens and tweens may resist watching such a wholesome movie, protesting that it sounds boring, Urban Country is precisely the kind of movie that adults want them to watch, with relatable characters who grow realistically. If you can get your kids to bite, you won't be sorry you did.