Gas Food Lodging

R

1992

1 hr. 40 min.

Drama

List

82%

17 Reviews

Tomatometer

73%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Sisters Shade (Fairuza Balk) and Trudi (Ione Skye) live in a remote New Mexico town with their mother, Nora (Brooke Adams), who waits tables at a nearby truck stop. The introspective Shade spends much of her time alone at the movies, while Trudi is more outgoing and rebellious, behavior that leads to various flings. While both girls are restless and looking for romance, Shade also hopes to play matchmaker and find a nice guy for her hardworking mother.

Read More

Read Less

Watch on Fandango at Home

Premiered Jun 27

Buy Now

Fandango at Home

Prime Video

Apple TV

Rent Gas Food Lodging on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

ashley h

Gas Food Lodging is a boring film. It is about a waitress who lives with her two teen daughters in a trailer park in New Mexico. Brooke Adams and Fairuza Balk give horrible performances. The screenplay is badly written. Allison Anders did a terrible job directing this movie. I was not impressed with this motion picture.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Interesting character study of a single mother and her two, differently tempered, daughters trying to find their place in the world while living in Laramie. I didn't quite connect with this emotionally but appreciated the touch shown by Anders in her first time directing, walking the edge between despair and hopefulness, while also avoiding the melodramatic trap that would have degraded this film in the long run. Great use of the natural landscape, contrasting the big wide open spaces with the smallness, both in experience and mind, of some of the members from that town.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/20/23

Full Review

Tom M

Great indie film. Fairuza Balk is brilliant and supporting cast is very good. Awesome soundtrack.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

11/21/20

Full Review

glenda l

We found it very entertaining.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

jim b

I don't see why this movie gets praise. The acting in it is pretty poor, with the exception of Fairuza Balk (if I could write down the exact time of the best scene with I would, but I'm not going back to find it on my rental; it's late in the film and in the kitchen; the best minute or so of this mostly pointless film). This film rambles, it's really aimed for women, and it just seemed to go on forever. I can't believe I didn't just see a 3 hour movie. Very boring and depressing. Really one should only see this if they have to see every movie Ione Skye (who is not a good actress) or Fairuza Balk (who is, or should I say, was), in it. And I don't. A real waste of time.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The characters of Allison Anders's affecting "Gas Food Lodging" (1992) will never know what it's like to be at peace - they'll forever be laboring, forever be too co-dependent to ever live their respective lives completely detached from one another. Dwellers of the kind of small, American town populated by few but visited by tourists on long road trips and hungry truckers aplenty, all they know how to do is live in the moment. Day to day existence is a struggle unlike any other. Because none of them are going to go to college and none of them are going to one day make something of themselves. They're going to be tied down to the food service industry and are perhaps going to get married and have kids out of boredom and obligation. Such aren't cynical notions - presented to us in the film is a character study so immersed in the mundanities of blue collar life that such depressive things don't much seem to be out of the ordinary. "Gas Food Lodging" revolves around the hardships endured by single mom Nora (Brooke Adams) and her two young daughters, the older Trudi (Ione Skye) and the blossoming Shade (Fairuza Balk). Floundering in her raising of them in a trailer park in a minuscule midwestern town, Nora attempts to look for love whilst waitressing, with Trudi using promiscuity and class cutting as methods of escape and with Shade utilizing Spanish matinees as vehicles for introspection. The film transitions between the plights of the trio like minor Altman, and maybe even like the latter's "3 Women" (1977), they sometimes appear to be a single person represented through different identities - Trudi and Shade are essentially embodiments of Nora in her younger years, with Nora standing as the woman her daughters have great potential to become in their middle-age. Not that Anders is going for intellectual convolution - it's that these characters are so well-defined that we can arguably envision who they were and what they'll become. The characterizational definition, effective and sometimes heartbreakingly truthful, makes the viewing of Nora and company's sufferings remarkably compelling. Whether "Gas Food Lodging" is a coming-of-age film is debatable - while we definitively see Shade mature throughout the course of the movie, the conviction that Trudi and Nora are other versions of her are enough to ward off trappings of the subgenre. But I'm also fairly positive than I see the film as being more than it is. Anders in no doubt set out to craft a gritty slice-of-life, and yet I cannot quite stop myself from coming to my analytical conclusions. But watching "Gas Food Lodging" either from an escapist disposition or otherwise doesn't much dissuade it from being the riveting kitchen-sink imitating drama that it is. Anders is compassionate toward her characters and her ensemble undoubtedly understands them. Adams, Skye, and Balk all bring a humanity to their portrayals that distinguish the family as being one everlastingly fighting to reach self-actualization, their flirtations with lash-outs and bad behaviors only effects of their trying to understand who they are. We could watch them go through the motions in the expansive limits of an epic and never lose sight of our caring for them, warts and all. Because hope is always at the forefront of "Gas Food Lodging," it never becomes the disillusioned feature that it could be. One day we hope that Nora will find a man she really loves, get a decent education, and break out of the small world she's found herself trapped in her entire life. That Trudi, despite her being a consistent fuck-up, will learn how to overcome her self-doubts and turn into the success she probably never will be. That Shade, who we immediately decide has a shot at breaking free from her dysfunctional upbringing, will thrive in a place that isn't her pint-sized hometown. Maybe it's all wishful thinking. But we root for these people enough to keep these fragments of optimism, and that's crucial for "Gas Food Lodging's" effectuality.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/03/23

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Allison Anders

Director

Brooke Adams

Nora

Ione Skye

Trudi

Fairuza Balk

Shade

James Brolin

John Evans

Robert Knepper

Dank

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

100%

82%

Passion Fish

86%

76%

Ruby in Paradise

TRAILER

for Ruby in Paradise

65%

62%

The Rapture

39%

36%

Poison Ivy

45%

73%

Losing Isaiah

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

View more photos

Ben Thompson

Sight & Sound

Lone Skye swears very effectively as the troubled and troublesome Trudi.

Feb 6, 2020

Full Review

Owen Gleiberman

Entertainment Weekly

Rated: B+

Sep 7, 2011

Full Review

Nell Minow

Movie Mom

Rated: 4/5

Sep 30, 2004

Full Review

Dave Giannini

InSession Film

This movie sinks or swims based purely on Fairuza Balk’s performance. Depending on the scene, she is bright, dark, cold, excited, loving, and angry. It is truly a masterful performance...

Feb 27, 2024

Full Review

Malcolm Johnson

Hartford Courant

The relationships of the women with their men and boys gives Gas, Food, Lodging its twists and turns, but its ultimate message is female bonding.

May 15, 2018

Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Rated: 1/5

Oct 5, 2006

Full Review

Read all reviews

Synopsis

Sisters Shade (Fairuza Balk) and Trudi (Ione Skye) live in a remote New Mexico town with their mother, Nora (Brooke Adams), who waits tables at a nearby truck stop. The introspective Shade spends much of her time alone at the movies, while Trudi is more outgoing and rebellious, behavior that leads to various flings. While both girls are restless and looking for romance, Shade also hopes to play matchmaker and find a nice guy for her hardworking mother.

Director: Allison Anders
Executive Producer: Carl Colpaert, Christoph Henkel
Screenwriter: Allison Anders
Production Co: Cineville
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Jun 1, 2012
Sound Mix: Surround

Most Popular at Home Now