Review: Trucker (2009, Mottern)
March 5th 2010 02:53
Trucker (2009, Mottern)
Written March 4, 2010
Trucker, written in directed by James Mottern, is a minimalist character study of a woman set in her ways and the curve ball life throws her in the form of her 11-year old son. Diane (Michelle Monaghan) is a hard edged truck driver. She sleeps around at truck stops and gets drunk with her married best friend, Runner (Nathan Fillion). One night she gets a package; her son, Peter (Jimmy Bennett). Diane’s ex-husband is ill with cancer and his girlfriend has to go to her mom’s funeral. It will only be for three weeks. Diane and Peter spar like two children; he calls her a bitch, she won’t call him by his name, only ‘dude’ or ‘kid’.
We’re not being shown an original tale by any means, but when you have these small slice of life independent films you tend to accept that and focus more on the performances. In Trucker, the audience can latch onto Monaghan easily. She brings complexity to a character that isn’t all that likable yet is still intriguing.
Trucker knows what type of film it is and it's self aware that the audience does as well. This is why Mottern glosses over key moments in the film. When Peter tells Diane ‘you’re the scardiest person I know’ we’ve never seen an example of this. Instead, it’s the age old story that we’re being shown projecting itself as something specific to these people’s lives. Diane’s relationship with Peter wanes and weaves. It doesn’t go from hate to love with no complications in between. Instead, we’re shown hate, interest, like, contempt, anger, hate again, and nurturing. Their interactions are like two children conversing. Diane doesn’t know how to be a mother, nor does she know how to relate to a child, much less one that is her own. Peter is more mature at 11 than Diane is at 29.
Sadly, the Jimmy Bennett is not a natural is rather wooden and contrived for a good portion of his scenes. The film may have flowed more if Monaghan had a great young co-star to work off of.
The relationship with Diane and Runner is rather unique due to the way it is handled. They’re two grown adults that are friends, yet he’s married and constantly goes out drinking with Diane. They don’t sleep together yet they both want to. For 4 years, their relationship has had a sense of purity to it. These interactions and the maturity of this friendship (along with Runner’s relationship with Peter) are what make the film worth watching.
However good Monaghan is, and she certainly is, her performance still has a twinge of familiarity to it. We’ve seen this woman before; we’ve seen this type of performance before. The best and most heartfelt performance in the film actually comes from (believe it or not) Benjamin Bratt as Diane’s estranged ex and Peter’s father.
Technically, the directing is not showy and is instead rather naturalistic. The soundtrack, filled with slow, twangy country/folk tracks, is exactly what one would expect from a Southern Californian trucker film.
The film takes a drastic turn in the last ten minutes which was completely unnecessary and doesn’t fit within the narrative structure. It’s as if the Mottern felt he had to interject shocking violent conflict when the entire film is about emotional turmoil rather than action.
Diane’s key phrase is ‘that’s not who I am’. She repeats this numerous times throughout the film’s length, mostly to herself. The thing is Diane doesn’t know who she is. In fact, she doesn’t even know who she wants to be. But by the end of the film, she knows what she needs.
Notes: Michelle Monaghan’s performance had created a lot of buzz very early in the award season. At one point, she was a frontrunner for Best Actress. Out of nowhere, she completely fell off the map and precursor awards largely overlooked her. The film received mostly poor reviews and that was the end of her Oscar bid. It is a very good performance, but at times comes off as contrived. Yet that's not really her doing, it's the material. It's a very good performance (the more I think about it, the more I like it) however it wouldn't make my top 5 of the year. The film itself is not a bad one; it would never catch mainstream appeal but at the same time I can see a small passionate following forming, much like Gas, Food, Lodging. In fact, Trucker is a film that easily could have been made in the ‘90’s. It has the perfect 90’s indie film feel to it; if it had, I probably would be in love with it since I was a 90’s indie junkie. Then, like Gas, Food, Lodging I’d go back and watch years letter and it wouldn’t be quite as memorable as I had once thought.
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