“Women are lonely in the 90s. It’s our new phase,” deadpans Brooke Adams’ cynical Nora to her erstwhile, married beau. Living in a trailer park in a stark Western town, she struggles with raising her two teenage daughters, Trudi and Shade—flawlessly portrayed by Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk—on a waitress’ salary. Though packed with a motley cast of maverick characters, the trio of women defiantly hold the center of Allison Anders’ luminescent, emotionally adventurous coming-of-age story. Even physically bearing some resemblance to her cinematic daughters, Adams disappears into her role, rapidly cycling through a chaos of emotions—exhaustion, exasperation, anger, love, disappointment—and buffered by a defiant survival instinct her daughters have inherited. A highlight of the 90s indie film explosion, Gas Food Lodging winds quirkily and enchantingly along a laidback, dusty road glimmering with unexpected richness, rawness, romance and tragedy as each of the women blazes her own trail, however unconventional that may be. – Brittany Gravely