This film's sympathy and affection for its characters, male and female, is both its greatest strength and biggest flaw, in my opinion. While I certainly did not miss the usual gallery of obnoxious, abusive guys that one often gets in movies about single moms raising teen daughters, especially if the director is a woman, I did long for at least one of the several conflicts to be resolved at least somewhat bleakly rather than tied together, as seen here, with pink ribbons of optimism. I also could have done with less needless narration, a sure sign, along with expositional dialogue, of lazy screenwriting (i.e. director Allison Anders shoulda outsourced the job to Diablo Cody or Naomi Foner). However, to offset these negatives, Anders and her cinematographer Dean Lent do a good job of plunging the viewer into the splendors and miseries of southern New Mexico (you can almost feel the gritty autumn wind blowing through town) and there is not a bad performance in the entire cast, with special kudos to Brooke Adams as the harried mom with low self esteem, Fairuza Balk as her coming of age daughter who enjoys Mexican cinema, and James Brolin as a the mother of all deadbeat dads. Give it a B.
Review of Gas Food Lodging
