MOUNTAINS OF TROUBLE is the story of a precocious seven year old, ALAYNA, who must not only endure what she is certain to be the most trying time of her life (childhood), but must also determine who she is as the third of four and a half children. Watch as she struggles to learn right from wrong and the lesson, “that just because you’re an adult doesn’t always make you right.” See her discover that for every decision we make and every road we travel, there is a toll to pay. We see and feel Alayna struggling to prove that girls can be as good as boys at anything, including doing the wrong thing, and we share the consequences with her.
From the very beginning of the film, the forces of good and evil are at work. DAMON AIKENS and MITCH FREEMAN, two ruthless land developers, do everything within their power to further their own cause; regardless of the price the rest of the residents, both people and animals of the area, must pay. As Alayna, going about the task of being a little girl, is inadvertently sucked into this adult world of lying and cheating, she begins to realize that some prices are too high to pay, and that not only isn’t money everything, but sometimes it buys the sort of misery you can’t live with.
While her parents are busy and Alayna is exploring areas not meant for exploration by anyone, let alone seven year old girls, she finds herself face to face with a caged female mountain lion and her two cubs. After deciding the animals shouldn’t be caged, she tries to let them go free. As the female mountain lion leaves the cage and the cubs are left behind, Alayna realizes the possibly disastrous results of her behavior, and attempts to rectify the situation by adopting the “kittens” on the spot. The kittens keep growing, as do her problems, and she is forced to employ the help of her brother and sisters.
This film addresses the admiration of and rivalry between brothers and sisters, younger children and older, boys and girls, as we see these children go from pushing each other to the limits of what they have been taught is right and wrong, to banding together against what they have been taught, in order to try to preserve a higher right. All the while, it also looks at the age old question of “What’s a parent to do?”