Gas Food Lodging

Gas Food Lodging's poster sums up everything the movie isn't about. In a woeful effort to put a sexy spin on proceedings, lone Skye and Fairuza Balk stare out with dodgy come-hither pouts, and the tag line ("When Shade's good she's very good, but when Trudi's bad, she's better") succeeds, with just a dozen words, to undermine the integrity of the whole damn shooting match. Read full review

Apart from its cast, however, Gas Food Lodging doesn't have a lot to recommend it. This is true: It's earnest, the milieu it establishes feels authentic, and the three actresses work hard at giving their characters a life...But Anders' inexperience at writing and directing shows. She overloads her film with too many subplots, and consequently loses whatever steam she manages to build up. She introduces too many secondary characters -- two suitors for Nora, one ex-husband, and two boyfriends apiece for each daughter -- but never develops any of them adequately. [9 Sept 1992, p.E3]

But too much of this movie is unstructured and stylistically haphazard. And by the time we get to its highly predictable conclusion, Gas Food Lodging is just one more formula coming-of-age drama. [28 Aug 1992]

It's too bad that Gas Food Lodging is as disconnected as it is because there's a real current of feeling here, especially in Balk's sympathetic performance and the film's unflinching depiction of a single woman trying to raise a family on her own. Rather than make a lasting impression, it makes only a passing one, as impermanent as the momentary view of a dying town on the highway. Read full review