CJ (Margo Martindale), a seasoned truck driver who has spent her years traversing the American Southwest, has meticulously constructed a life of distance from her past. However, a letter from the parole board threatens to dismantle the walls she has painstakingly built. CJ, facing the prospect of retirement and a reckoning she has evaded for years, must finally find the courage to pause and contemplate her future. 

The Long Haul is the feature debut of writer-director David Drake, and it announces a filmmaker to watch. Working with an extraordinary cast that includes Stephen Root, Cole Sprouse and Yalitza Aparicio, Drake brings a photographer's eye to the low light and long silences of working-class America. But the film belongs to Martindale, who turns a woman of few words into someone you can't stop watching. Small and melancholic in the best way, this is the kind of quiet, aching drama that stays with you long after the credits roll.—Jarod Neece