'The Poker House'

Lori Petty's career pretty much defines the term "flash in the pan"; she went from rising young star in 1991's "Point Break" to bona fide box-office draw in 1992's "A League of Their Own" to game over in the unloved "Tank Girl" (1995). Petty has been active since then in a low-profile sort of way, but her second film as director, "The Poker House," an autobiographical indie from 2008, will finally get a belated release in Japan thanks to the current stardom of Petty's then little-known leads, Jennifer Lawrence and Chloe Grace Moretz.

"The Poker House" is set in a ramshackle Midwestern den of iniquity, where strong-willed teenager Agnes (Lawrence) is trying to raise her two younger sisters (Moretz, Sophia Bairley) while dodging the predatory attentions of the assorted pimps and drunks (Bokeem Woodbine, David Alan Grier, et al.) who are always hanging around. Worse may be the emotional abuse doled out by her crack-ho' mom (Selma Blair, channeling the spirit of Gena Rowlands) as the girls scrape by on junk food and the small change provided by discarded-bottle returns. As a portrait of sibling solidarity, "The Poker House" is all right — although over-egged in the last reel — but what's more interesting is its frank depiction of how easy it is to fall through the cracks in modern America.