Allison Anders's GAS FOOD LODGING is a heartfelt, honest look at a teenage girl's coming of age. Fairuza Balk stars, giving a tremendously sympathetic performance as Shade, a girl living in a trailer park with her mom, Nora (Brooke Adams), and doing her best to hold her volatile family together. While Shade's older sister, Trudi (Ione Skye), sleeps around and is filled with rage at men, her mother, and the world in general, Shade is a compassionate, melancholy teen who spends time watching wildly romantic Mexican movies at the local cinema. She believes her mother will be happy if she can find her father, John Evans (a moving performance by James Brolin), and reunite her family. Though things don't go quite so smoothly, the film maintains a hopeful tone. Anders's second film, GAS FOOD LODGING put her on the indie film map, establishing her as sensitive director whose stories of struggling women, told in their own voices, are marked by emotional honesty and disarming humor. GAS FOOD LODGING is an intimate, well-wrought gem.