We see the boots first, then the leather cigarette case, the silver lighter -- all very worn, very male -- in the seedy motel room where sounds of sex, raw and desperate, fill the air.
But appearances are rarely what they seem in "Trucker." It will be the woman who shrugs off the night; the boots and the rest are hers too. Lean and sinewy, she heads for an 18-wheeler in the parking lot out front, slides behind the wheel and kicks the engine into a dull roar. As the road stretches out in front of her, only then does she breathe easy.
This is just the first of many miles we will travel with Michelle Monaghan's Diane Ford, the sexy tough chick in the fast lane of writer-director James Mottern's haunting tale of motherhood lost and found.
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. That the trucker of the title, a take-no-prisoner's woman barely in her 30s with a taste for whiskey, late nights and rough sex, is a mother is one of the first.
It is almost as much of a surprise to Diane. Her boy, who she hasn't seen in years, is unexpectedly dropped off one night. His dad, her ex (Benjamin Bratt), is fighting cancer and the stepmom (Joey Lauren Adams) has too much to handle. It will only be temporary, but Diane knows even temporary will upend her life in ways she's not interested in exploring.
Peter (Jimmy Bennett) is 11, and he is just as reluctant about the arrangement. The back story comes out in the half-sentences of resentment he hurls in her direction. Diane's the stranger who left him when he was a baby. In a sense, he's a chip off the block, erecting a wall of anger just like his mother to keep the world from getting too close.
Mottern takes his time with the relationship, letting Diane feel her way toward Peter, who is locked in a deep sulk anyway. Circumstances conspire to force her to take him on the road for one haul with truck stops turning out to be not exactly a safe hangout for a kid.
Diane comes to mothering slowly, reluctantly and in her own way. When some punks at a convenience store across from their motel hassle Peter one night, she storms out in her wife-beater tee, underwear and socks to register a complaint with a few well-placed punches. Mother love, when it comes, turns out to be fierce. As is Monaghan, who creates a kind of visceral force field that flashes in her eyes and tightens the muscles across her back.
