What Alice Found (2003)

68% of critics liked it
(38 reviews)
48% of users liked it
(597 ratings)

Alice (Emily Grace, in her first feature film role) has run away from her small town, New Hampshire home and hit the road, completely unprepared for the future. She has a wad of ill-gotten cash and a semblance of a plan. She's going to Florida, where she'll crash with a friend who goes to college… More Alice (Emily Grace, in her first feature film role) has run away from her small town, New Hampshire home and hit the road, completely unprepared for the future. She has a wad of ill-gotten cash and a semblance of a plan. She's going to Florida, where she'll crash with a friend who goes to college there. Dolphins have always fascinated her, and eventually she hopes she'll somehow find a way to enroll herself in school and study marine biology. After an unpleasant encounter with a couple of lowlifes on the highway, she pulls into a rest stop. As she's getting ready to hit the road again, Sandra (Judith Ivey) approaches her, warning Alice that she and her husband, Bill (Bill Raymond) saw some guy messing with her car. Sure enough, one of Alice's tires has been punctured. Worried that someone may be planning to ambush Alice out on the roadside, Bill (who, Alice notices, carries a gun) and Sandra ask Alice to follow them in case her car breaks down before she can get it fixed. Sure enough, the old wreck of a car does break down. Sandra and Bill offer to take the wary Alice to a bus station. She hops into their RV, and soon finds herself hitting it off with the loquacious Sandra and her quiet husband. When they offer to save her a few bucks by driving her all the way to Florida, she hesitantly accepts. Soon, they're treating her to meals, and buying her new outfits. But she soon learns the unsavory truth about how Sandra and Bill pay for their freewheeling lifestyle. What Alice Found, written and directed by A. Dean Bell, was shown at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 36 min.
Directed By: A. Dean Bell
Written By: A. Dean Bell
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Dec 5, 2003 Wide
On DVD: Sep 21, 2004
Studio: Castle Hill Productions

Critic Reviews

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News
An almost constantly surprising coming-of-age film with a dark twist that manages to take the high road with what is well-exploited material.
Todd McCarthy, Variety
A solid character piece that deftly probes the complicity of both sides in a morally dubious relationship.
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Ivey is fascinating, cooing nonstop in a cozy Southern accent, friendly and accepting, but also observant and oddly unknowable. It's a performance that even gets better on second viewing.
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Sweet, suspenseful, funny, poignant -- and adult.
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
The movie looks like TV from beginning to end, and accentuates the other major compromise of its meager budget.
Megan Lehmann, New York Post
A rough-hewn, modest little road movie of sorts, elevated by a trio of compelling performances and a desire to take the narrative road less traveled.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
This amateur film looks more like a TV show than a movie.
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone, TheMovieChicks.com
What we found is a bleak, but interesting look into a world where the line is blurred between good people and bad. Judith Ivey's performance is the real jewel of the film.
Scott Von Doviak, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
It plays like a walk on the wild side dreamed up in a Starbucks.
Laura Kelly, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Assisted by the harsh immediacy of digital video, writer-director A. Dean Bell puts forth his material with utter objectivity.
David Elliott, San Diego Union-Tribune
Candidly unsentimental yet utterly human.
Eric D. Snider, EricDSnider.com
It neither glamorizes nor demonizes truck-stop whoredom; it merely depicts it, with little of the internal strife that ought to accompany it.
Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
The film's somewhat light-hearted tone is wholly inappropriate in what is, in essence, a story of sexual predators.
Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune
Ivey delivers a sassy, no-nonsense performance and Grace shows herself a sensitive young actress, but neither overcomes Bell's pretensions or digital-video limitations.
Brent Simon, Entertainment Today
A fine merging of means, material and ego -- a nicely acted, simple little road movie vacuumed free of any indie scene smugness or self-satisfaction.
Elias Savada, Nitrate Online
There's something fresh and honest here.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
This digitally-shot feature never seems aware of its subjects.
Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
A modest but pungent slice of interstate life.
Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly
Bell forces us to see characters from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks in a distinctly human light, neither ennobling nor pitying.

Read all 19 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Cynthia S

What a nice surprise! I had my doubts that a low budget film about a lot lizard would be good, but I found this is an interesting movie. Good acting, and a good setting, made all the more real by the low budget filming. It is not slick, or insulting. Just a very nice character study.… More
What a nice surprise! I had my doubts that a low budget film about a lot lizard would be good, but I found this is an interesting movie. Good acting, and a good setting, made all the more real by the low budget filming. It is not slick, or insulting. Just a very nice character study. Very decent little Indie flick.
Mark A

A gritty tale of a young woman who makes a series of bad choices and discovers that what she was running from wasn't as bad as she thought. The story is a bit predictable, the accents are phony, and the cinematography is low-budget all the way, but there is some gold here anyway.… More
A gritty tale of a young woman who makes a series of bad choices and discovers that what she was running from wasn't as bad as she thought. The story is a bit predictable, the accents are phony, and the cinematography is low-budget all the way, but there is some gold here anyway. The characters are well drawn and the interaction amongst the husband (Bill Raymond) and wife (Emily Grace) truck stop team and the young girl (Judith Ivey) they befriend is actually somewhat nuanced. The lure of easy money proves capable of breaking down Alice's resistance and provides the means by which she eventually grows up. Not a deep, psychological study, just an entertaining, small, unpolished gem.
Doctor S

Ultra low-budget yet effective road movie as Alice, an awkward "New Hampshah" teenager, travels to Florida with a seemingly normal Southern couple near their fifties. Except she comes to discover this 'normal' couple actually moonlights as mom & pop truck-stop… More
Ultra low-budget yet effective road movie as Alice, an awkward "New Hampshah" teenager, travels to Florida with a seemingly normal Southern couple near their fifties. Except she comes to discover this 'normal' couple actually moonlights as mom & pop truck-stop hookers. Alice is running from her own troubles, and running low on money... Often low-key and matter-of-fact with a distinctly unglamorous depiction of sex and an astute understanding of youthful minds. There were contrivances at a couple key turning points but nothing near a deal-breaker. I really liked how they alluded to the title's origin during a phonecall near the end, and the scene that summed up Alice's experiences after a week with this couple when she went to buy cigarettes and handed her I.D. to the cashier: {Peering quizzically} <i>"Is this supposed to be you?" "Of course it's me."</i> {Shrugs, handing her I.D. back}<i> "If you say so."</i>