Off the Map

Winsome tale of a little family that chose in 1974 to unplug themselves from the "grid" of middle class life and go live off the land in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico. A windmill pumps their well water. They read by kerosene lamps. They grow vegetables. They've gradually stored away four years of food and three years of firewood.

Cash comes in the form of a small VA pension to the head of the household, Charley Groden (basso voiced Sam Elliott), plus some modest crop sales. All told, they take in about $5,000 a year. Which makes it curious indeed when they receive notice that the IRS is dispatching an agent to visit. But wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of things.

The other family members are Arlene Groden (the immensely versatile Joan Allen) and Bo (Valentina de Angelis), Charley and Arlene's precocious 12 year old daughter. A good friend, lonely bachelor George (J. K. Simmons), hangs around so much he seems like family too. The time in question here, when Bo was 12, actually was maybe a decade ago, for we are learning this story as a narrative reminiscence told to us by a now adult Bo.

The summer when she was 12 was marked not only by the advent of William Gibbs (Jim True-Frost), the IRS man, but by the occurrence of Charley's first ever episode of deep depression. It went on for months. He sits mute most of the time. Eats little. Sleeps little. Cries softly a lot. Refuses to seek professional aid from the VA.

Arlene manages to keep things going, but her generally serene style is eroding as the weeks go by. It doesn't help that Bo is restless, tired of her isolation, chafing to go to regular school, get a credit card, move out into the larger world. Not one to hide her light, Bo complains eloquently about her boring life, even as she maintains a loving, respectful attitude toward her parents.

The arrival of William Gibbs destabilizes the precarious symmetry of these people's lives. Turns out Gibbs is depressed too: maybe not as severely as Charley, but it's gone on for many years. He just became an IRS agent lately, grasping at some possible change for the better. In thrall to Arlene's mystical ways and beauty, Gibbs drops out of the IRS, moves into an old schoolbus on the property, and takes up watercolor painting.

Arlene and Bo are both grateful for attention from a new face. And, perhaps in a house too small for two depressed males, Charley begins to come out of his shell, with some help from a borrowed bottle of antidepressant pills that fire up a manicky conclusion to his near catatonic state. Even George comes to life and goes hunting for a woman to marry.

This is a small film about unconventional people, folks who don't fit the molds of middle class, rich, arty or neurotic urbanity that typify the subjects of so much traditional fiction – print and film. Adapted from a stage script by the playwright, Joan Ackermann, this work reminds me of the novels about quirky, offbeat people that have become so popular in the past few years.

I'm thinking of the work of authors like Louise Erdrich ("The Beet Queen"), E. Annie Proulx ("The Shipping News" – which, incidentally, was adapted into a fine film that did not receive the recognition it deserved), or Anne Tyler ("Clockwinder," " Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant," "A Slipping Down Life").

The movie is not without its hitches. Why is a coyote - to which Arlene had developed an intense spiritual connection - killed? How did Bo actually acquire that credit card and get approval to use it for such a grand and costly gift? The film starts somewhat bumpily. For a while it seems like Ms. de Angelis will overwhelm both her family and us viewers with her domineering intelligence. But with time, she, like the film itself, wins you over.

Indeed, "Off the Map" ends by charming you, making this film a pleasant surprise. It's of interest to compare "Off the Map" to another recent release about 1970s dropouts, Rebecca Miller's "The Ballad of Jack and Rose." That film more or less trashes the whole ideal of living a life according to values that run against the stereotypical middle class norms of acquiring material possessions and working to pay off the resultant debts.

The fact that Jack and his merry band failed to sustain their alternative way of life is implicitly presented as evidence that their aims were unsound, invalid. "Off the Map," on the other hand, conveys a better sense of what motivated people to drop out back then and shows that at least some dropouts achieved a measure of success.

I don't know why, but it took two years to bring this decent film to the screen (made in 2003, it is only receiving commercial distribution now). My rating: 7/10 (B). (Seen on 04/13/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

The great thing about "Off the Map" is how beautifully it tells its simple story. It's about a family, mother (Joan Allen), father (Sam Elliott) and daughter named Bo who live completely by their own means, and well off the main road. Having not paid taxes on the little bit of money they make, an IRS agent (Jim True-Frost) comes to find them.

It really is just a character study, primarily about the daughter as she watches the interactions of the adults around her and what she really wants out of life, and about the IRS agent who learns about himself by meeting these people who live their life in a way he never realized.

It's an independent drama driven by a simple narrative and simple shots. The characters aren't all investigated as they probably should have been, and it does move very slowly. But for those who like sitting back and just observing characters, "Off the Map" is well done. I was particularly impressed by Jim True-Frost's performance, and the young Valentina De Angelis as Bo.

This movie just blew my mind!! Let me start by quoting some of the review in LA Weekly:

From beginning to end, the movie achieves nearly complete originality of expression that makes it as anomalous a figure on today's independent film landscape as the film's characters are on theirs. Sequestered on a ranch deep in the recesses of rural New Mexico, a part-Hopi woman (Joan Allen), her catatonic depressed husband (Sam Elliot) & their precocious 11-year old daughter (Valentina de Angelis) live off the land...

The characters rarely do what we expect of them, while tragedy, absurdity and mordant humor are held in a precarious balance that recalls Sam Shepard at his best...

The ocean meets the sky in a cycloramic mural that, like the movie itself, is a small masterpiece of tone and form. To watch Off the Map is to be pulled into a private universe on the brink of civilization--from which, at the end of two hours, it is impossible to exit unaffected.

This is too true. Half the audience sat through all the credits & then sat for a long few minutes more, just unable to move. For the second time in a week--1st was after Dear Frankie--I was walking the beach for an hour working off feelings stirred up by a film. I don't usually react this way!!

Some more observations from me:

Acting: Joan Allen has GOT to get an Oscar nomination for this! She's excellent throughout, but there's one scene you will never forget: She's hoeing the garden nude with a floppy hat standing like a statue. I won't say more, but what you think is going on isn't. The whole way the scene is filmed is both hilarious & just wow all at once. She was so brave doing that--and no ridiculous implants for her! She's just gorgeous.

Valentina: She shines. It reminded me of the reaction Natalie Portman got in Beautiful Girls. The one where men were saying, "I feel like a pervert, but I can't wait for her to grow up." But this blows Natalie away, in my opinion.

Sam Elliot does an amazing job as the depressed husband. He looks old & grizzled these days but he's got a sexy deep sand papery voice I've always liked. And he's still handsome.

Jim True-Frost plays a visitor who gets drawn into their strange world. He has several excellent scenes where he blurts out all these intense feelings.

Script: The whole story is just so unique. And the dialog is really clever. It will remind you a little of David Mamet.

Directing/camera-work: Campbell Scott created an amazing film and has an eye for beauty and a feel for understated but potent eroticism. But what really got me is the way they framed shots when the characters start doing something really random. The action often starts outside the audience's POV & pans over so you're craning in your seat to see what's going on in anticipation.

I can't recommend this highly enough!

What a pleasure to see this movie--an intelligent and beautiful film that deals with real, grown-up (and growing-up) issues faced by real characters in thoughtful and believable settings. The young girl's character was excellently drawn and acted--as was the mother's, played by the wonderful Joan Allen--but Sam Elliot stole the movie for me. What a great piece of understated acting. The screen writing is wonderful, too, but the acting is truly phenomenal. The best American film since "American Beauty"...If you liked "Lost in Translation" or "Spring Forward" you will love this movie. Cameron Scott should be nominated for an Oscar for best director--his hand is so delicate yet knowing--thank you Cameron, for making sure this film got made, and for all you clearly must have done and been through to get it distributed. It is an amazing film.

When a married Arlene Groden (Joan Allen) tells her house guest, William Gibbs (Jim True-Frost), that although it's nice he's expressed his love for her, it can be accounted for by the power of New Mexico, I knew I would express my love for this understated, eccentric, and satisfying film. While the two male heroes, Gibbs and Arlene's husband, Charley (Sam Neill), are both depressed in the clinical sense, the film is not about depression but rather the forces of devotion and simplicity that keep these retro-hippies functioning in a remote world somewhere around Santa Fe, Taos, and El Paso.

Narrator Bo Groden (as adult, Amy Brenneman and as 12 year old, Valentina de Angelis) reminisces as an adult in voice-over about that 6 months of her father's immobilizing depression in the seventies and her own freedom in that pristine land where she could hunt, plink, and create without restriction. Bo is not a wild child but rather a home-schooled, precociously sensitive pre-teen who plans to leave here as soon as possible while she regularly receives gift packages from manufacturers whom she has threatened to sue over allegedly contaminated products. Her nonchalant but effective treatment of her father in his funks is one of the many acts that assure us she is quite capable of surviving anywhere. Director Campbell Scott's determination not to fill us with back stories on all the characters makes for an energetic exploration of the way they are at this time.

Gibbs, who came from the IRS to audit the family, stays 8 years, long enough to paint New Mexican landscapes of note. His friendship with Charley is true and good, despite that fact that Charley probably knows Gibbs loves Arlene. Charley asks him, "Ever been depressed?" William replies, "I've never not been." Out of his passion for the landscape comes his sanity and a renewed interest in life that he seemed to have lost with the suicide of his mother, for which he feels responsible.

"I am a damn crying machine," Charley says. You may end up crying as well, but only because not enough movies like this are made where insights into humanity are as abundant as the Groden's garden and their four years' supply of homemade canned goods. Lafcadio Hearn could have been describing the Grodens when he said, "It is only in the home-relations that people are true enough to each other, --and show what human nature is, the beauty of it, the divinity of it."