SXSW Film

The subjects of Big Rig (Photo By John Anderson)

Big Rig

D: Doug Pray

Anyone who purchases their produce at their local farmers' market will likely not be sympathetic to many of the ideas expressed in Big Rig, a documentary portraying the isolated and often dangerous lives of truckers. Despite this possible ideological divide between the film and its audience, it's hard not to develop tender feelings for the people who haul our nation's honeydew melons and MRI machines across the country. Cheerful Loretta loves her husband fiercely despite his wandering ways; charmed Claude feels blessed after surviving a crash that should have decapitated him; Dale the dreamer left corporate America to commune with the open road. These working-class folks have definite opinions about our country and the people who lead it, informed by their perspective from behind the wheel of a giant truck. It's a heartfelt, if sometimes too loosely constructed, examination of the invisible workers who keep the wheels of this nation's economy churning, for better or worse.

1:30pm, Paramount