Moonee
Moonee is six years old which is very hard to remember because she is getting into a great deal of trouble already and it seems as if her life is going to mimic her mother's. She loves her mother even though their relationship is not the traditional mother-daughter one. She is also aware of how her mother lives even though Hailey thinks she shields her from it. Moonee spends her summer break getting into trouble with her friends and because they are unsupervised they escalate into actual criminal activity, albeit accidental. Moonee does not realize that this is not how a child should be living. She does not want to go with DCF and runs away to the Magic Kingdom theme park with her best friend.
Hailey
Hailey is a young single mother with a maverick attitude, a chip on her shoulder and very few options that will enable her to improve her life. In fact her life gets worse during the course of the movie. She doesn't want to have sex for money with the clients at the strip club where she dances, and so she is fired, but this means that she loses her benefits as well, which puts her in the position of having to have sex for money in her own hotel room. Her life is on a downward track but it seems that it is happening to her rather than because of anything that she does, or doesn't do. Hailey is facing an investigation and the potential loss of her child at the close of the film.
Bobby Hicks
Bobby is the manager at the Magic Castle Motel, and he is very protective over his longer term residents like Hailey and Moonee. He is also very protective of the children who ive there and this puts him in a difficult position on more than one occasion with the guests at both his motel and at the motel next door. Although he wants to help Hailey he is forced to clamp down on her taking sex clients in her room because it is bringing the possibility of violence to the motel. Bobby has a son, Jack, who lives with him at the motel.
Jancey
Jancey is Moonee's immediate best friend. She lives at the Futureland Motel with her grandmother. She is protective of Moonee and wants to make her happy so she grabs her hand and runs her to the real Magic Kingdom theme park when she sees her distress over being taken into foster care.
Ashley
Ashley is another young mother living at the Motel, but she has her life in a little better order than Hailey does. She wants to help Hailey and Moonee because her son Scooty is friends with Moonee. Ashley works at the diner and steals food for both her own family and for Hailey. She loses patience with Hailey after a physical fight and cuts off all ties with her. She looks down on Hailey after she learns that she is working as a prostitute.
Dicky
Dicky is one of Moonee and Scooty's closest friends but his father does not approve of these friendships and when he learns about the spitting incidents in the parking lot he stops Dicky playing with them anymore. Dicky moves with his family to New Orleans, leaving most of his toys behind for the other kids.
Scooty
Scooty lives at the motel with his mother, Ashley. He and Moonee are incredibly close and also the kind of friends who egg each other on into more trouble than they would get into on their own. He is told not to play with Moonee after his mother and Hailey get into a physical fight.
