Based on a novel by Richard Peck called Don't Look and It Won't Hurt,
Allison Anders' melodramatic coming-of-age tale Gas Food Lodging takes place in Laramie, NM, a small town right off the highway. Nora (
Brooke Adams) is a truck-stop waitress who lives in a trailer park with her two teenaged daughters, Trudi (
Ione Skye) and Shade (
Fairuza Balk). While Trudi sleeps around and defies her mother, Shade spends her time at the local cinema and wishes she could have a dad like a normal family. One day, Trudi hooks up with a visiting geologist (
Robert Knepper) and spends a magical evening in a cave with him. However, he turns up missing and Trudi finds herself pregnant. Meanwhile, Shade's romantic advances are rejected by Darius (
Donovan Leitch), but she finds something new with film projectionist Javier (Jacob Vargas). Shade's attempts at finding a husband for her mom are unsuccessful, but Nora ends up meeting satellite TV installation man Hamlet Humphrey (David Lansbury). Features a cameo appearance from Dinosaur Jr. frontman J. Mascis, who also wrote the original music. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide