Video Movies : <i> Recent releases, reviewed by Times critics.</i> : **** Excellent *** Good ** Fair * Poor

** “Stacking.” Charter. $79.98. PG.

This 1987 film, about a young girl’s coming of age on a Montana farm in 1954, has some of the evocative, pared-down detail of a good short story. Writer Victoria Jenkins, working in the vein of “Places in the Heart” or “Country,” pits her plucky 14-year-old heroine against desperate finances and a crumbling family. But the admirable parts don’t coalesce into an effective whole. The film lacks texture, and though the actors--especially Christine Lahti as the mother and Peter Coyote as a romantic wanderer--are good, they often seem trapped in the frame, unable to breathe.