Maybe it's the slightly Lifetime TV subject matter of her film, but something about first-time director Joey Lauren Adam's Come Early Morning brings out the inner tabloid writer: Finally, finally, poor Ashley Judd crawls out from under the long, grizzled shadow of Morgan Freeman to shine in the sunlight of (wait for it) Early Morning....

In sooth, because it so fully fleshes out its portrait of a working-class alcoholic woman, Come Early Morning deserves significantly less glibness. And from its opening shots, it's clear that Judd, puffy eyes squinting in too-bright sunlight, mouth twisted in a battle between defiance and self-reproach, finally delivers the versatile, fierce performance she's had in her all along. (Maybe because she is finally free of Morgan Freeman's long, grizzled shadow).

Set in a small Arkansas town where everybody not only knows your name but your drink of choice, Lucy Knowles (Judd) is highly relied upon but not exactly nourished. She lives in a world of aunts and uncles and nanas and drinking buddies; of new and old country tunes blasting from jukeboxes; of quiet nights punctured by breaking beer bottles; of saturday nights spent line-dancing, and of small, well-kept country kitchens. She mediates her grandparents' fierce squabbles, chauffeurs her great-grandmother to her abusive great-grandfather's grave, campaigns unsuccessfully for affection from her stoney-faced drunk of a dad, swigs shots, and beds random men at the local bar. She is also an accomplished contractor and the sort of broad who insists she plans to put the dog she rescued to sleep, even though everyone knows she won't. Like most alcoholics, Lucy is competent in some areas of her life and a train wreck in others, and Adams diligently depicts that full range.

It feels important that although the twin towers of Church and Sin reign supreme in this film, such Southern cliches as salt-of-the-earth characters with cartoony accents do not in this distinctly un-hokey Arkansas community. Where Come Early Morning breaks most ground, though, is in allowing Lucy to evolve without evolving out of her surroundings; the image of a protagonist zooming away against the big sky sinks nearly every movie about small towns but this one. Instead, Lucy pursues the business of coming into her own — starting her own business, separating out her own crap from others' — with her feet planted firmly in Southern soil.

Come Early Morning is rich with good things, even if it lays them on a little thick when it comes to spelling out Why She Suffers. A few less scenes of the nanas' weak-sister wisdom would have been fine, for example. But the old honky-tonk is glorious, as are the finely honed shots of wide-planked porches and starry country nights and unspoken regrets. Together, Judd and Adams have crafted an authentic, clear-sighted film that does their region proud.