The synopsis

”The Ranch House” tells the story of Alan Hooker, the eccentric proprietor of an award-winning dining establishment where famed Hollywood celebrities hideout from prying eyes, the line between fantasy and reality blur, and, most important, he is adored by many. However, as the story unfolds, we discover that his boyhood fantasy world come to life only seems to intensify his appetite for genuine human intimacy, for he is never alone yet always in crushing isolation. In his private letters, unpublished memoirs, and personal audio recordings, Alan reveals himself to be a lonesome, disenchanted man, who, despite the success of his restaurant, continues to be tormented by the concealment of his sexual orientation and a childhood thwarted by rejection.

The Ranch House is more than a story of rare celebrity encounters and the restaurant's historical roots. The film is a form of contemplative meditation that functions to pull us back from the distractions of everyday life, and focus on who we are, and what our spirit yearns for.

We are all born into this world with a unique genetic signature. These variations affect our physical characteristics, our behaviors, and our risk for developing certain diseases and disorders. And yet despite our differences, we collectively share an insatiable hunger. An emptiness and void that cannot be assuaged by prosperity, fame or physical pleasures.

For most of us the natural instinct is to transcend such urges, attempting to obtain the wholeness at the heart of contentment through compulsive, moralistic means. But, although we exert an incredible amount of psychic energy in this endeavor, our efforts for purification are invariably futile – partly because we are engaged in a vicious cycle of complimentary opposites at war with each other. Like an ill-advised serpent trying to devour its own tail, we strive for contentment by prevailing over discontentment, unaware that reality must involve both polarities, for they are mutually arising and inseparable sides of the same coin.

In surrendering to the harmonious interplay of opposites, the mirage of an isolated self evaporates and the mind no longer has the stronghold to tell a story of conflict. Our identity shifts from the character in the story (who has skin in the game so to speak) to the awareness experiencing this whole event we call life. We find there is a fluidity, presence, sensitivity, and curiosity – without a storyline that is personal. And even when the imagined entity aches from hunger, we effortlessly arrive at a freedom in form where awareness is present, loving in the foreground and indifferent in the background. It is in this state of awareness that hunger finds its true origin. The mind quiet enough to notice that while the expression of hunger can vary – be it the craving for scrumptious fare, the need to acquire spiritual knowledge, or the longing for companionship – the energy behind the hunger is ultimately the same. It is a hunger that has prevailed throughout the history of mankind. As if engraved on the human heart while in the primordial womb. It is the hunger to return home. The hunger to be reunited with the Source that gently whispers in moments of stillness.