Tribeca - Trucker
A sometimes funny drama, about an independent woman who makes her living as a trucker being forced to deal with the son she had years before who she now has to care for. The real strength of this film are the performances of all three of the lead actors. Michelle Monaghan is just awesome as the lead; as the director pointed out afterwards there were plenty of scenes where she never had to say anything because she could say so much with her body posture and her face. Jimmy Bennett is also great as the kid, avoiding any of the cloying overacting that is so common among precocious kids trying to pander to an adult audience (the ‘isn’t he so twee’ phenomenon). And Nathon Fillion is just the man. I’ve never seen him in a role where he wasn’t just awesome, and this film is no exception (it probably helps that all his roles are fairly similar).
I’m torn between giving this a four or a five. It didn’t strike me as being quite as good as the other dramas I gave a five (Let the Right One In, for example), but there is nothing glaring that stands out to indicate if should get a four. It is the sort of situation where I’d love to give a four and a half, but that’s not the rules of scoring films in the festival. So it gets a five.