``Seems weird for a woman to be driving a truck,'' 11-year-old Peter (Jimmy Bennett) remarks in Trucker, giving voice to the audience's thoughts. ``Yeah? Well what should I be doing?'' the defiantly independent Diane (Michelle Monaghan) shoots back. Previously relegated to the role of token love interest in movies such as Mission Impossible III, Gone Baby Gone and Eagle Eye, Monaghan demonstrates an untapped level of talent and skill in Trucker, tackling the difficult role of a woman who refuses to behave as societal norms dictate and has paid the price with loneliness and alienation.

Written and directed by James Mottern with more attention to character than to plot, Trucker is a simple, unadorned study of a loner forced by circumstance to embrace the world again -- but only on her terms. Proud of owning her rig and saving up to pay off her modest one-bedroom house, Diane relies on no one and appears to have only one friend in the world, the easygoing Runner (Firefly's Nathan Fillion).

Runner is married, which means his relationship with Diane must remain platonic, so she fulfills her sexual needs with road trysts in cheap motels with men she'll never see again.

Trucker could have used a little more plot: After a series of events forces Diane to become Peter's temporary guardian, the story plays out pretty much as you'd expect, and her last-minute confrontation with a minor supporting character comes out of nowhere and feels extraneous.

But this modest little movie excels where so many big Hollywood films fail -- by engrossing you in the day-to-day lives of ordinary, working-class people -- and it boasts a star-making performance by Monaghan, who renders Diane as complicated and conflicted, someone who gradually learns that you can achieve independence and freedom without forsaking happiness and community.

Cast: Michelle Monaghan, Nathan Fillion, Jimmy Bennett, Benjamin Bratt, Joey Lauren Adams.

Writer-director: James Mottern.

Producers: Celine Rattray, Galt Niederhoffer, Daniela Taplin Lundberg.

A Plum Pictures release. Running time: 93 minutes. Vulgar language, adult themes. Plays at 6 p.m. Saturday at Cinema Paradiso. Director James Mottern and actress Michelle Monaghan will attend.

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