FILM TITLE: GAS, FOOD LODGING DIRECTOR: ALLISON ANDERS COUNTRY: USA 1991 CINEMATOGRAPHY: DEAN LENT MUSIC: J. MASCIS WRITTEN BY: ALLISON ANDERS CAST: Brooke Adams ( Nora ), Ione Skye ( Trudy ), Fairuza Balk ( Shade ), Robert Knepper ( Dank ), David Lansbury ( Hamlet ), Chris Mulkey ( Ray ), Donovan Leitch, James Brolin ( John E. ) SUPER FEATURES: Woman's story and views.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are not many films that explore the way women interact. Theatre tends to bring out much of the emotional side of women, and rarely give us another view of things. Film tends to create dolls out of many women, and never allow us to see them as anything but the pretty things that many women can be.
Allison Anders has opted for something else. This is more of a film about the interaction between a mother and her two daughters, than it is about anything else. How they get along, and how they last together, is the real story. This may seem that the story takes a back seat to the many changes, and sub plots which might take place, but Allison seems right at home, and showing us how all three of them get by, from day to day, even if nothing ever comes out of that one moment.
Nora has been left behind with two daughters, both in their teens, and now trying to make friends and learn to live in a rather rough area in New Mexico. The mother has become a bit callused and bitter since her husband walked out years before. The oldest daughter has become an incarnation of the mother, something which the mother doesn't like, but has to face everyday. And the younger daughter is becoming a total romantic, in a world that has basically lost that feeling, except in the movies. Trudi spends much of her time checking out the films of a Mexican film star, whose body of work is every woman role and predicament that you could think of. The ultimate silver screen soap opera star. At least, the film seems to point out, the character in those films is a real woman, and she fights for her beliefs.
Quite a bit of this is found in all three women and their relationships, although we might be more choosy about their getting along. Shade ( the older daughter ) finally finds someone she has come to love, but like everything else, it moves on, and she is left pregnant. Trudi, finally gets to know that young man that she has been facing all the time, and although he is Mexican, he is nice, and not the generalized depiction that everyone around her thinks of them. And the mother.... after a serious altercation where she is told by the older daughter that she hates men, finally grows up a bit from her anger, and learns to appreciate a little of life herself.
The intricate, and well done, thing in this film, is the way each character moves, and goes about their daily lives. The mother is always mothering, and never enjoying herself. She is basically unhappy as a person. The older daughter has been raped and is basically looking for love, and instead gets the results of it thrown in her face, right or wrong. The young one, takes her time, and at least seems to be better adjusted than the other two. She has a hard time, but she makes it.
The inter mechanics of these relationships adds a nice interplay for the three actresses, while also showing something about the life in the areas of the country where we might feel that there is none. In most cases, the women are grossly abused, and taken advantage of, but in several situations, as the film points out, there is the opportunity to learn, and develop into something far worthier as a person. The older daughter may not have survived it as well, and it might be said that her fault was that she could not figure out when to start and when to stop. Both the mother and the younger daughter take their time, and do not get involved in the sexual game which obviously befell the mother in her younger days, and is hitting the older daughter.
Maybe this is the point. And some get hurt in the process. But, Allison's point seems to be, how do you get strong out of your own infallibility....
Wonderful film to watch, despite its obvious short comings of small budget, it takes its time, and might even be considered a bit slow, but it is not boring. Life is not easy in many walks of life and some people do get hurt in the process. And the real strength, then, is about to appear.
3.5 GIBLOONS Copyright (c) Pedro Sena 1994 Member of the Internet Movie Critics Association
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