Allison Anders Films | Allison Anders Filmography | Allison Anders Biography | Allison Anders Career | Allison Anders Awards

Allison Anders?s most consequential film to date is Gas Food Lodging, a sharply observed character study which is most effective as a refreshingly realistic look at the travails of motherhood without fatherhood. Set within a family whose members are all women, it is a story of motherly love and concern, daughterly yearnings for freedom and independence, the realities of romantic love, and the characters? vulnerabilities and cravings for compassion and understanding.

Anders tells the story of Nora Evans (Brooke Adams), a truck-stop waitress in the dusty town of Laramie, New Mexico. Nora is attempting to rear her two teenaged daughters, whose father ?walked off? when they were very young. The eldest, 17-year-old Trudi (lone Skye), is as rebellious and promiscuous as she is pretty. She has accumulated one too many unexcused absences from school; among her peers, she has earned a reputation for being ?easy.? Nora and Trudi constantly squabble, most particularly over Trudi?s arrival home at ungodly hours after hot-and-heavy dates with men who promise her the love and affection she covets. Nora is distressed because she does not want Trudi to be victimized by suitors who will promise commitments they have no intention of keeping.

Trudi?s kid sister, Shade (Fairuza Balk), is a sweetly innocent romantic who has not yet discovered the pitfalls of sexuality. Her concept of love has been gained from watching corny Spanish-language movies at the local theater. Shade longs for the traditional nuclear family, and is intent upon instigating a relationship between her mom and a man?just about any male who might make an appropriate mate for Nora and stepdad for her and Trudi. Will such a situation ever be possible? Or will there always be roadblocks that will prevent Shade?s dream from becoming real (or, more to the point, from reflecting the outcomes of the movies to which she is addicted)?

The latter is certain to be the case, because Anders?s characters exist within a world that is more reflective of reality. Unlike more traditional celluloid portraits of women on their own, none of the characters ends up being saved by a man. There are no handsome hunks on white horses to whisk them away from the drudgery of their lives. Gas Food Lodging is the polar opposite of a Hollywood assembly-line product such as Pretty Woman, a Cinderella story whose spunky, squeaky-clean heroine just so happens to be a Hollywood Boulevard whore. She may love old movies just as passionately as Shade, do dental floss rather than crack, and be played by Julia Roberts; her savior may be a profiteer, but he is cute, doesn?t drink, says no to drugs, and is transformed by love into a constructive citizen. Pretty Woman is a sugary entertainment package which, in its own perverse way, serves as a recruiting poster for a career as a hooker. It is also the type of film which, one safely assumes, would disgust Allison Anders.

Furthermore, in Gas Food Lodging Anders depicts characters you rarely see in Hollywood films: blue-collar workers who live ordinary lives and struggle for survival in unglamorous environments. Nora?s plight as a single mother may be common in today?s society, but it is one that rarely is acknowledged with any thought or depth in mainstream movies. Yet the lives of such characters are rich in dramatic possibility. At the core of Gas Food Lodging is an intelligent, nonsensationalistic story featuring women?s points-of-view regarding men, sex, love, and dreams. Additionally, the film is highly autobiographical. While trying to jump-start her career, Anders herself worked as a waitress?and she is the single mother of two daughters (born in 1974 and 1977). The filmmaker has claimed, however, that she modeled the character of Nora Evans after her own mother.

The films Anders made before and after Gas Food Lodging have been much less spectacular. Border Radio, set amid the Los Angeles punk scene, was barely noticed. Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life) is a well-intentioned chronicle of the plights of Latina gang members in East Los Angeles. Unlike most ?teen-gang? movies, which focus on the personalities of males?with their female counterparts appearing as either decorations or prizes to be won in rumbles?Mi Vida Loca offers portraits of adolescent girls. Their evocative nicknames?Sad Girl, Mousie, Whisper?tell you all you need to know about them. And here, too, Anders is mostly interested in the manner in which the characters share camaraderie and form identities apart from the men. Unfortunately, the result is dramatically vague, a series of pasted-together episodes that do not add up to a cohesive whole.

Anders?s attempt at a full-bodied portrayal of Latino girls in Mi Vida Loca may be linked to a secondary plot line in Gas Food Lodging. At one point, Trudi callously dismisses a young Mexican-American busboy as a wetback; later on, a friend of Shade whispers that the same character is a cholo, a gangster and dope dealer who robs pizza deliverymen and steals car radios to support his illegitimate children. The lad, of course, proves to be something else altogether, an entirely sympathetic character.

Anders?s segment in Four Rooms, a four-part feature co-directed with Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodr?guez, and Quentin Tarantino, is equally run-of-the-mill. Titled ?The Missing Ingredient? it is the senseless story of a coven of witches who go about trying to raise their goddess from the dead.

Anders?s career is at a crossroads. Will she be able to come up with a commendable follow-up to Gas Food Lodging, or will history prove her a one-shot artist, a footnote among women filmmakers??ROB EDELMAN