Monaghan, a well-known actor in popcorn fare like “Mission: Impossible III,” “Eagle Eye,” and “Made of Honor,” shows as she did in Ben Affleck’s “Gone Baby Gone” that she’s got acting chops to match her looks. This is an authentic, full-bodied, three-dimensional portrayal of a woman who thinks she knows where she’s going but has clearly lost her way. “Trucker” (an unfortunate, generic title) is her triumph, one of the best performances you will see in this, or any other, year. As her buddy, Fillion is charming and perfectly cast, while in just one scene Bratt is terrific, giving strong shading to a dying man who became frustrated by Diane’s fierce independence and long absences.

Read the full review here www.backstage.com

The movie steadfastly avoids histrionics, opting instead for the quieter truths of a mother caring for her son, much to her surprise and in the only way she knows how. It takes place in the long shadows, dimmed lights and dusty roads of a setting that befits a story centered on such isolation and amplifies the impact of the close bond that develops between Diane and Peter. “Trucker” is a movie for audiences that value a particular strain of subtle naturalism that one rarely sees on the big screen anymore, a nostalgic rehashing of the days when movies didn’t need to telegraph every last detail.

Review by Robert Levin
For full review Click here

Michelle Monaghan was on the brink of inhabiting forever the thankless role of the good-looking, plucky female in action movies about men (“Mission: Impossible III”). She was excellent in “Gone Baby Gone,” and here she confirms her talent. Jimmy Bennett, who was 11 or 12 at the time of shooting, has been good in heavy-duty projects before (“Orphan”) and played the young Captain Kirk in “Star Trek” (2009), but here shows a subtlety and command of tone that is remarkable. (It’s time for him to start billing himself as James. He’ll be relieved when he’s 20.) Together these actors create an abrasive relationship that sidesteps all sentimentality, in a film that correctly ends when a lesser film would have added half an hour of schmaltz.

Monaghan is Diane Ford, a trucker who just paid off her own rig. She’s 30-ish, cold, hard-drinking, promiscuous, a loner. Bennett plays her son, Peter. She left him with his father Len (Benjamin Bratt) soon after his birth, has stayed away, doesn’t like kids — or men, either, although she uses them. One man (Nathan Fillion) has been her best friend for four years, but that involves getting drunk together and never having sex.

Len gets sick. Colon cancer. He’s been living for years with Jenny (Joey Lauren Adams), who now needs time to care for him. It’s up to Diane to look after the kid. She doesn’t want anything to do with him. “Just for a few weeks,” Jenny pleads. Just until Len gets better. Sure.

You are anticipating, as I did, that “Trucker” would turn into one of those predictable movies where the mother and son grow to love each other. It doesn’t end with mutual hate and abandonment, but it damn near does. The kid is as tough as his mom. “Answer me!” she says. “I don’t talk to bitches!” he says. Len and Jenny seem nice enough. Where did he learn to talk like that? Little pitchers have big ears.

I concede the story arc is fairly predictable, assuming neither one murders the other. But Mottern and his actors take no hostages. Diane is hard and tough, and stays that way. Her son is angry and bitter, and stays that way. Does they need to love and be loved? Sure. We know that, but they don’t. By the end of the film, she hasn’t called him “Peter” and he hasn’t called her “Mom.” He’s “kid” or “dude,” and she’s “you.” They have to be together whether they like it or not, and they know it.

That said, Monaghan makes Diane more sad than off-putting. She isn’t a caricature. She works hard, values her independence, is making payments on her small suburban home on an unpaved street, is living up to her bargain with herself. The movie spares us any scenes where she’s “one of the guys.” It opens after a one-night stand with a guy who tries to be nice, but she doesn’t need a nice guy in her life. Nor does she need to be nice with Peter, but one thing she does do: She’s always honest with him and speaks with him directly, and I think he knows that. Her performance clearly deserves an Oscar nomination.

Peter is loved by his father and Jenny. He hasn’t been mistreated. He probably senses how sick his dad really is and knows he wasn’t parked with Diane because anyone wanted him there. He’s been told things about his mother that are, strictly speaking, true. She did leave him and Len soon after his birth. She does want to avoid seeing him. He says something revealing that he knows of her promiscuity, although he may not quite understand it.

What Mottern does is lock these two characters in a story and sees what happens. Something will have to give. The supporting performances by Nathan Fillion, Benjamin Bratt and Joey Lauren Adams are precisely what is needed: direct, open, no “acting,” good tone control. They are good people, but very real people, with no illusions about life.

I value films that closely regard specific lives. I know they usually must have happy endings. Not always. Haven’t we all learned to expect certain things in a story about a mother and a son? Aren’t those things in fact generally true to human nature? I hope to feel elevation at the end. But a film should earn it, not simply evoke it. “Trucker” sets out on a difficult and tricky path, and doesn’t put a thing wrong.

rogerebert.com

Michelle Monaghan on the other hand gives her most personal and powerful performance of her career. Her dedication to Diane is some of the finest work displayed on screen this year and is surely to be in serious consideration for an Oscar nomination. Monaghan devotes her mind and heart into one of the most unlikable characters and demands our respect and attention, something not easily attained by an actor. Her screen chemistry with Jimmy Bennett is some of the most natural and beautiful scenes seen in quite sometime, despite it being filled anger and acrimony.

Despite Monaghan being the best chances of the film to garner awards consideration this season, the unsung hero is Nathan Fillion who gives the most tender and heart warming supporting turn of the year thus far. As I’m sure I might be in the minority for the praise of this actor, I feel inclined to give a superb performance its proper due. I admire it greatly.

Other strong aspects of the picture lie in the cinematography of Lawrence Sher is should find himself with an Independent Spirit Award mention this year as well.

The film is definitely worth a watch and as it may not fit well with everyone, you have to admire the attempt nonetheless. Michelle Monaghan and Nathan Fillion give some of the best works of the year and it’s always great to see the birth of a writer/director like James Mottern and where he could go in his career. Trucker is definitely worth the watch.

Clayton Davis – via IMDB

cknewton -5 out of 5

Nathan Fillion gives another outstanding performance!

tesh11 – 4 out of 5

A very good movie (short of being great though) and definitely worth watching. While the overall story is somewhat predictable, it was nice watching Diane and Peter interact and I thought they gave nice performances. The cinematography was excellent.

…Half road trip and half learning how to make a home, “Trucker” gives Michelle Monaghan a chance to show what she can do and the result is encouraging, although twelve year old Jimmy Bennett nearly steals the show

… If Monaghan’s acting is sufficient, young Bennett’s is excellent and helped considerably by his wiser-than-his-years lines penned by Mottern.

In many films the writer/director role is too much for one person to handle. In this film Mottern is able to use a simple story to give him the time and space to work on the presentation of the character’s lines. This is vitally important in keeping the film true-to-life and not becoming a moral lecture.

The setting is the sun baked hills of Southern California and points east, and the excellently matched country-western soundtrack produced by Mychael Danna deepens the aimlessness of the open road with a touch of a silver lining. The songs seem to float along with the trucks and cars as Diane and Peter encounter one challenge after another to their attempted bonding. The trucker urban myth is not exploited in this film, but explained with the utmost realism—Diane would rather be a trucker than a waitress or a nurse.

The storyline is formulaic: the young mother has learned to live without her son and the two are only reunited due to the serious illness of her ex-hubby. Both have serious misgivings. This would be a boring story if not for the seriously funny lines of son Peter who, being the parent for most of the film, shows mom Diane why she should stop living like a kid. The two are as much enemies as allies.

Broken family films usually become either maudlin or patronizing. Indeed, this film walks that line but somehow avoids falling into the dungeon of self-pity due to Mottern’s sharp and lean dialog. Great supporting work by Nathan Fillion as Runner, Diane’s married wanna-be boyfriend. The two appear in some pretty durn good drunken shenanigans that are actually funny. Drunk jokes rarely make a film, but these are added with such perfect realism that many will reflect on having been there, whether they like it or not. Also contributing to the overall success of the film are Joey Lauren Adams and Benjamin Bratt…

• Full Review: www.monstersandcritics.com

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I attended a press screening on Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival. Trucker is great. Strong cast, powerful film. A bit on the predictable side but it still is solid — ProductionGirl IMDB User

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I also saw Trucker at Tribeca and I thought Michelle Monaghan and Nathan Fillion did amazing work on this film! Nathan was so incredibly hot, but not in a way he has ever been seen before. He was downright manly and had women in the audience gasping for air during one esp riveting scene. Michelle Monaghan kicked a** and should def get an Oscar. The audience was filled with people of all ages and somehow this movie seemed to touch a cord with virtually everyone. I saw 3 people who were sobbing so hard, they fled the theatre to recover. I was blown away, too. Amazing movie! Can’t wait to see it again when its released to the public!

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…(A performance like this shows you what [Michelle Monaghan] could have done in Gone Baby Gone if the Affleck Brothers had fleshed out her character with stuff from the novel. But then she would have blown Casey Affleck off the screen.) She doesn’t blow Nathan Fillion off the screen, and their chemistry is just what you’d expect from two people who know that only their scars can kiss. Her scenes with Jimmy Bennett are real and borderline shocking for all the anger and resentment that erupts in them, and … it’s totally believable. This is the kind of role for women that only seems to pop up in small films, personal films, or self-produced films. Diana is a rich, real, complicated part, and Monaghan inhabits every nasty, frustrated, hopeful moment of it. What makes this movie even more amazing: it was filmed in less than three weeks. — Horvendile

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Heart rending/warming pic in the tradition of the great seventies films like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. — Chris Hawthorne

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Evoking a gritty Diane Lane, Michelle Monaghan convincingly portrays Diane Ford, a truck driver so disconnected she can’t even bring herself to call her estranged 11-year-old son (Jimmy Bennett) by his name.

Writer/director James Mottern hits the perfect tone with Trucker’s fadeout and takes Diane’s relationship with love-struck friend Runner (charming Nathan Fillion) to a surprising climax. Mottern also successfully captures the tired Riverside, Calif., setting and its encircling crossroads of interstates, although the abundant natural sunlight can lead to distracting haziness. — Woman on Film

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The premise (loser bonds with estranged kid) has been done again and again but director James Mottern and the cast do a fresh take on the old premise and make a very honest and emotional story with some great acting.

Chemistry is necessary for this picture to work and the cast has it. Romantic chemistry between Michelle Monaghan, who does a wonderful job carrying this film, and Nathan Fillion and mother/son chemistry between Monaghan and Jimmy Benett. I also enjoyed Mottern’s script and the cinematography. — Yorick Brown, IMDB User

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The movie is a small gem. Not only is it well shot but each frame, although short, is quite seamless in telling the story over a period of time. The main character, the trucker, played by Michele Monaghan, is honest and real. Regardless of whether you support the decisions that she has made with her life, she wears everything on her sleeve and is very much in touch with who she is.

There is absolutely an audience for this film outside of the film festival. I hope that somebody picks up the film. It would play well at the Angelica or the Quad. A heartfelt film that touched me. — Gotham Gal

]]> http://truckermovie.net/review-snippits/45/feed 2 http://truckermovie.net/cant-help-but-fall-in-love-with-nathan-fillion/56 http://truckermovie.net/cant-help-but-fall-in-love-with-nathan-fillion/56#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 17:27:43 +0000 Admin http://www.truckermovie.net/?p=56 The third film I saw on Sunday was called Trucker. It stars Michelle Monaghan as a truck driver whose 11-year-old son from a very early marriage pops back into her life. She’s used to being kind of solitary, and really isn’t prepared for this. The director, James Mottern, told us beforehand that Michelle couldn’t be here, but she really wanted us to know that she did drive the trucks herself. She didn’t even have a regular driver’s license at the time, but she went to school to learn how to drive the big rigs.

Nathan Fillion plays yet another character that you can’t help but fall in love with. Not a bad thing to be typecast as! The actor (Jimmy Bennett) who played the little kid was very subtle for a child actor. I asked about him during the Q&A and Mottern said “Yeah, he’s really a 40 year old man.” Pretty amazing.

The last question came from Michelle’s brother, who said she made him promise not to embarrass her, but that didn’t stop him from asking “Did she have to stop every half hour and take a piss, liks she did on family vacations?” Apparently he was ok with breaking his promise.

• Full Article: http://mirka23.blogspot.com

“When I first read the script, I didn’t like Diane at all. She’s seriously flawed and I was appalled by her behaviour towards her son.

“But I realised she’s just being true to herself,” Michelle told me at the Tribeca Film Festival in downtown New York.

It’s a better role than – and the complete opposite of – the woman she plays in the romantic comedy Made Of Honour, which opens in UK cinemas today.

• Full Article: www.dailymail.co.uk

Her performance elicits the same exhilarating sense of discovery that surrounded Sally Field’s breakthrough in “Norma Rae.” And there are some parallels between those two characters. Monaghan’s Diane is a bruised, ballsy woman who’s made something of a mess of her life. She goes through a transformation during the course of the story and emerges as strong rather than merely tough. Although the film doesn’t have the social import that made “Norma Rae” a hit, it’s an affecting, small-scale film that could catch on with sophisticated audiences as well as more down-home types.

…the performances carry the movie. Writer-director James Mottern demonstrates both rigor and tenderness in his feature debut.

Monaghan shows absolutely no vanity in exposing the hard, reckless side of the character, and Bennett matches her. Already a veteran of a dozen movies, the youth exudes an unaffected ease that other child actors might envy. The strongest scenes come in the unsentimental tug of war between mother and son. Nathan Fillion is enormously likable as Diane’s best pal who might have the potential to be something more. Although Bratt’s role is rather underdeveloped, he gives dimension to his few scenes. The atmosphere of roadside Americana is genuinely portrayed, as well. The story may not be earth-shaking, but Monaghan’s star-making performance assures that it will be remembered.

• Full Review: www.reuters.com