There’s a lot of fuss being kicked about this week about the little indie film, “Trucker,” and we’re not sure what that’s all about. The small, scrappy little indies hits theaters this weekend, but you’d hardly know if you looked around (it’s not on Rotten Tomatoes for this week’s releases, though you can find it on Metacritic). Not that that has anything to do with its quality, but just saying.
The straightforward, no frills-film, about a tough and emotionally detached female trucker with no maternal instinct forced to raise the son she abandoned when her ex-husband gets cancer, is earning rave reviews and some are talking Oscar for its lead Michelle Monaghan. Roger Ebert was the most recent name critic to weigh in on the film and he gave it a 4/5 star review. Pathological Oscar proponents Awards Daily have been beating the drum furiously for this one, but hold the phone people.
While the film is surprisingly well-shot (some great contours and dirty textures throughout) and well-scored (a plaintive and heartfelt country-ish, acoustic-led music by Mychael Danna, plus lots of use of indie-country that won’t make you wretch), we’re not sure we buy Monaghan as the hard-bitten mom here that drives a four wheeler and once abandoned her kid. Monaghan was fantastic in her breakout role, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” but she’s mostly floundered ever since in bad career choices (“Eagle Eye,” though she was decent in “Gone Baby Gone”) so it stands to reason she’d want to take on a role with more grit and meat to it, but is she the right choice here? Sipping copious beer, smokin’ lots of ciggies, cussing a lot and fucking everything that moves doesn’t neccessarily make for a break-out performance, but to hear it from the rest of critics it’s like she’s completely transformed herself into another person which couldn’t be further from the truth.
She tries to unpretty herself, dirty herself up with a half-hearted Midwestern hairdo (ok, she looks fairly unattractive maybe it does work), but her performance is not really any major tour de force. Spouting, “dude,” every two seconds and and acting like one has a sock in their johnson doesn’t neccesarily lend her any deep airs either.
And yes, tough hardships befall the character, but much of it (like a random rape scene) is tonally out of nowhere. But just because brutal, harrowing things happen to characters doesn’t mean they neccesarily respond or react to these problems in particularly nuanced or profound ways.
Some are calling the film and her performance heartfelt and soulful, and while we’ll give the film the latter designation in spots (supporting players Benjammin Bratt and Nathon Fillion are solid and the latter’s quiet performance might actually be the best thing about the picture, thesp-wise), it also does have a bit of a Lifetime Movie predictable, warm and fuzzy tone to it as well.
Not quite sentimental and melodramatic, we’ll give it that, but not quite moving or emotionally penetrating either. “Trucker,” is a decent little indie and we wish all the filmmakers the best with it, but frankly, it’s nothing to get overly excited or write home about either. And if Oscar prognoticators think Monaghan is getting a nomination, they’re more delusional than we thought. Maybe an Indie Spirit Award if she’s lucky, but even Michelle Williams ISA nomination in “Wendy & Lucy” (an indie performance that was Oscar worthy) blows her far out of the water emotional pound for pound.