The overall story serves as a metaphor for American life, where too many people spend a lot of time keeping busy without ever really enjoying the moment and without ever being truly alive.
Comment
11/24/09
Trucker (2009)
58
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:31
Fresh:18
Rotten:13
Average Rating:5.7/10
Consensus: Excellent performances by Michelle Monaghan and Nathan Fillion and keenly-observed details of small town life elevate this otherwise predictable and inconsistent melodrama.
Synopsis: Diane Ford (Michelle Monaghan), a vivacious and successful independent truck driver, leads a carefree life of long-haul trucking, one night stands and all-night drinking with Runner (Nathan... [More]
Starring: Michelle Monaghan, Nathan Fillion, Benjamin Bratt, Joey Lauren Adams
Director: James Mottern
Reviews for Trucker
Monaghan demonstrates an untapped level of talent and skill in Trucker, tackling the difficult role of a woman who refuses to behave as societal norms dictate and has paid the price with loneliness and alienation.
10/29/09
Trucker is a knockout.
10/23/09
The whole thing plays with wobbly craft that, finally, creates a deep patina of suspicion and dullness.
10/23/09
The only thing to take away from this bumpy ride is the smooth performance by Monaghan.
10/23/09
Monaghan's good, despite being too pretty, and the film, with a melodramatic storyline that seems perfect for a Hallmark TV movie, is good, too.
10/21/09
Features spectacular performances but these excellent actors are required to do too much heavy lifting with a script that plays out too predictably to be effective.
10/21/09
You know exactly what is going to happen and you don’t really care.
10/19/09
Most of Trucker comes off like a sincere but totally artificial slice of life.
10/19/09
There are so many wonderfully unconventional things to like about this tiny independent film, Monaghan's earthy and uncompromising performance chief among them, its depth surprising you at every turn.
10/16/09
Top CriticMonaghan, so good in Gone Baby Gone, mopes self-consciously through the role of Diane, a loner who finds her heart when she's thrown together with her estranged 11-year-old son (Jimmy Bennett), whom she takes on the road. Yes, it's one of those movies.
10/14/09
You want to like Trucker. You really do. But writer-director James Mottern makes it awfully hard with his washed-out, predictable aesthetic.
10/14/09
A nostalgic rehashing of the days when movies didn't need to telegraph every last detail.
10/09/09
With the sad state of the indie business Trucker may make a fast exit to Netflix, but thanks to Michelle Monaghan it's a trip worth taking wherever you may find it.
10/09/09
Monaghan gets how people with honky-tonk souls move in mysterious ways.
10/09/09
Michelle Monaghan delivers the goods.
10/09/09
The vehicle (if you will pardon the pun) doesn’t quite know what to do with her character. And so the movie, the first feature written and directed by James Mottern, turns into a conventional mother-child reunion drama.
10/09/09
Top CriticMonaghan conveys the character's boxed-in emotional conflicts through a flickering wariness and constricted body language. Diane seems hopeless, but the actress keeps us holding onto hope for her anyway.
10/09/09
Monaghan does a reasonably good job with a formulaic script that calls for her to become prettier and more feminine as she learns to be a mama bear to her smart-mouthed but ultimately adorable kid.
10/09/09
Even if the film dutifully hits all the old notes, its characters are interesting, its California desert setting is novel, and its cast works hard. And not only is its star trying something new -- she’s getting it wonderfully right.
10/08/09
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September 13, 2009:
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