Scrupulously fair-minded yet deliciously ambiguous, What Alice Found, a triumph of sound psychological and artistic judgment, is an unexpected treat for sophisticated audiences.

In the end, the camper-lot prostitution serves as trapping for a weirdly touching coming-of-age film that leaves its heroine sadder but wiser.

A small, finely wrought drama.

The screenplay by director Bell is packed with surprises, and the acting is excellent.

It has nothing going for it but a terrific story and an amazing performance by Judith Ivey, who plays an enigmatic Good Samaritan.

Bell forces us to see characters from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks in a distinctly human light, neither ennobling nor pitying.

An unusual angle on the age-old coming of age story. Filled with solid performances by veteran actors Ivey and Raymond, as well as a captivating performance by newcomer Grace.

There's a refreshing frankness to the film's treatment of its sordid subject matter that more than compensates for its technical limitations. The three performers inhabit their roles with, yes, an emotional truth that is bracing. This is particularly true of Ivey.

By turns disarmingly amusing and dramatically blunt.

Digital video is both the blessing and the curse of writer-director A. Dean Bell's well-conceived but underachieved What Alice Found.

Bell has added unexpected shadings to what could have been simply a sordid tale of highway prostitution, gradually revealing surprises to the characters that keep a murmur of unease thrumming throughout.

Newcomer Grace seems born to the part of an unformed young woman whose character cries out to be shaped, but it's Ivey's unobtrusive skill that shapes their onscreen relationship into something thoroughly convincing.

Ivey hits the turf pitching and catching dialogue like a pro, but nothing could have saved What Alice Found from a fundamental cinematic illiteracy.