THE DRAB INDIE FILM Trucker takes the unbeatable
premise of Three Men and a Baby and makes a few minor
modifications, bearing in mind one of the lessons of an equalizing
parenting landscape: Women can be unfit parents, too!
Trucker opens with an idyllic glimpse into the working life
of foxy truck driver Diane (Michelle Monaghan) as she contentedly
cruises her rig from one long-distance destination to the next, dotting
the map behind her with the one-night stands she’s loved and left. Upon
returning to her Southern California home, she’s abruptly saddled with
the care of her 10-year-old son, Peter (Jimmy Bennett)—a son she
abandoned years ago, with the agreement his father would take full
responsibility for his upbringing (Dad’s colon cancer was not, alas,
part of the long-term plan).
But Diane’s not prepared to change her hard-driving, anonymous
truckstop sex-having ways. She is, as her son frequently reminds her,
kind of a bitch—but perhaps a sensitive and caring soul hides
beneath that leather-tough exterior? Perhaps this free spirit is cut
out to be a mother, after all? Oh, filmgoer, I think you know the
answer to that.
Diane’s domestication wouldn’t be complete without a staunchly
heterosexual love interest, provided here by actor Nathan Fillion, who
to Joss Whedon’s salivating fanbase will need no introduction (he
played Mal, captain of the Serenity, on Whedon’s
Firefly). As Diane’s mouth-breathing neighbor, Fillion helps
smooth the relationship between Diane and her newfound kid—all
the while not-so-subtly mooning after his pretty neighbor, who seems
willing to sleep with any man but him.
While Trucker begins generously, offering a woman access to
the freedom the open road has always offered to men, Diane is soon
enough shown the error of her roving ways. It’s not long before a moral
emerges—and for all the film’s rough indie edges, the punchline
couldn’t be more mainstream: “Once a mother, always a mother.”