The opening scene of the new movie Trucker, about a tough, single female truck driver confronted with motherhood, will grab you. Not because it's a woman having an orgasm, or that the woman is sexy, girl-next-door Michelle Monaghan, but that it looks incredibly authentic.

Throughout the 93-minutes of Trucker, you can watch it on mute and still feel the gritty transition that Monaghan's character is forced to go through. Her acting is just that raw. (Oscar time!)Known for her roles in blockbusters--Mission Impossible II, Eagle Eye--Monaghan carries this indie film as a character descended from Jack Nicholson's drop-out in Five Easy Pieces.

When her cute boy-toy, in the opening scene, asks her to stay, Monaghan, already pulling on her jeans and boots, just before walking out the door, drops the brilliant line that sums up her lone-wolf character: "I get paid by the mile." She is a working woman, and, as a truck driver, she works for herself.

To get into the role of playing Diane Ford, Monaghan spent weeks getting her commercial driver's license (CDL), getting trained by women truck drivers. It's something she said she loved doing and is a big fan of truck driving. She may just go out again, for fun.

In the $1.5 million budget film, Monaghan actually gets behind the wheel, driving a commercial truck alongside real cars on the road. She says, like her character, she just loved the freedom of driving a truck.

My sewing teacher in high school drove trucks in the summer to earn extra money. Though she couldn't, for all her toughness, teach me how to sew, she certainly made an impression on me as one strong, no-nonsense woman, petite and stoic. Monaghan's Diane resembles that.

Some of my favorite movies--The Hangover, Old School--limit women to being simply sweet or sexy. These quotable classics refuse to include the hilarious, no-nonsense woman, who a lot of these insane guys like to hang out with in real life, anyway. That's why it's refreshing to see a movie like Trucker that shows a woman who's comfortable with being behind the wheel of a wild ride.