The
second feature film of Peabody Award winning filmmaker Allison Anders, Gas Food Lodging, despite being based
upon the young adult novel Don’t Look and
It Won’t Hurt by Richard Peck may well be the director’s most
semi-autobiographical work to date.
Telling the simple yet direct and emotionally involving story of single
mother waitress Nora (Brooke Adams) who lives in a trailer park with her two teenage
daughters Trudi (Ione Skye) and Shade (Fairuza Balk) in a trailer park within the
desert of New Mexico, Gas Food Lodging is
simultaneously a hard hitting drama as well as gentle natured coming of age
story concerning women foraging in an unforgiving world. Life seems routine for loose bad girl Trudi
and withdrawn matinee moviegoer Shade until one day Trudi falls pregnant,
sending the lives of the dysfunctional family unit into a tailspin while distant
father figure John (James Brolin) tries to worm his way back into their lives.
Providing
a snapshot of contemporary Western American life rarely depicted in the movies
as well as a platform for the then up-and-coming writer-director to channel her
own life experiences growing up as a troubled teen turned single mother trying
to find love and happiness in a world of abandonment, dust and vast, barren badlands,
the long awaited blu-ray debut of Allison Anders’ seminal indie drama finally
makes its premiere thanks to the efforts of Arrow Video and their eclectic
Academy line. Seen now, the film has
lost none of its tender, quiet charm and its perceptiveness about how geography
and the absence of a stable father figure can derail the lives of the family he
left behind.
What
stands out immediately are the performances which are as rich and borne of real
blood, sweat and tears as anything in say, Bob Rafelson’s classic tale of
disillusionment Five Easy Pieces. Take for instance young Fairuza Balk who
after starring in children’s fare such as Return
to Oz and The Worst Witch stars
in a role that proved to be as close to the actress’ own adolescence as it is
to the director’s. Considered by Balk to
be her personal favorite film she’s worked on to date, she exudes a wide range
of emotion which like Allison Anders seems to come from a very real place
grounded in their mutual upbringings. Providing
voiceover narration despite not being the primary focus of the film, Balk’s
raspy, chirpy voice casts a sweeping spell over the images that harken back to
the haunting voiceover narration provided by Linda Manz for Terrence Malick’s
epochal Days of Heaven.
While
Gas Food Lodging isn’t one to
reinvent the wheel, as it stands it’s a sweet natured and at times genuinely
moving little number spoken of the same breath as Kelly Reichardt. It opened my eyes to a subsection of small
town American life rarely glimpsed in the movies and the chemistry between all
the actors is infectious. Moreover Gas Food Lodging remains a character
driven Southern fried coming of age drama about surviving as a family unit in
the furthest outskirts of the New Mexican landscape. Its quiet charm will most likely grow on you.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki