Off the Map
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Movie Reviews of Off the Map
Movie Review: I'm Forced to Write Like a Shill For Once
Summary: 5 Stars
I try to avoid superlatives when discussing movies, and I dread watching anything that's been described to me as "heartwarming"....But yeah, this was heartwarming. And beautifully shot. And superbly acted. It's really an excellent movie.
The cast is a collection of largely unappreciated and underused talent, which helps sell the story as we're not seeing the same overexposed large names, but not amateurs either. Sam Elliot may be the first actor I've ever seen actually get severe depression (somewhat) right. The movie's treatment of the topic in general is a breath of fresh air, showing that even a strong, smart man can, for no apparent reason, and for the first time in his life, enter a serious depressive state. And the alternating states of understanding, frustration, and confusion from his wife, daughter, and best friend are handled very well. But Elliot's acting makes the pain and aimlessness of the situation incredibly poignant. JK Simmons is excellent as always as Elliot's dimwitted best friend. Valentina de Angelis, who I haven't seen before or since, is a great combination of the exuberance and frustration of being young and growing up in the country, and Amy Brenneman provides her adult-self's voice-over narration. Joan Allen plays a character that's tough to describe but that anyone who's lived in the southwestern desert will recognize. Jim True-Frost, whom I'd only seen on The Wire, plays a profoundly changed man during his metamorphosis.
The plot focuses on a family that lives more or less off the grid, and the IRS agent who stumbles onto them and becomes one of them. The movie wisely refuses to romanticize the simple life the family leads, or to condemn them, but rather to show the pleasures and pains that often come with such a lifestyle. Anyone who's been around children who grew up with parents big on "self-sufficiency" knows that they often long for something more normal at the time, and that growing up in relative isolation can bug even someone with loving parents. The sense of purpose the family has mixes with a sense of uncertainty and we see their interactions play out against the backdrop of rural New Mexico. It's not a grim or dramatic film; it's paced deliberately, with threads of humor and joy woven into everything but never being overwhelming or cloying.
I think what ultimately made the film so special to me was the level of care obviously put into it. Much of the content has been done before, but rarely done so well. Some of the events could have easily come off as forced, indie-film preciousness if they hadn't been executed so well. This is a gem of cinema, and, and I'll leave it alone at that and urge you to see for yourself.
Movie Review: Off the Map, but oh, what a destination
Summary: 5 Stars
The descriptions in the Amazon synopsis seem to omit some crucial elements of the gentle but evenly paced gem. The acting is superb. The direction is elegant, with poignant pauses that allow the furniture to creak dialogue, the desert's army of owls and coyotes to offer chorus. 1974, Korean war vet Sam Elliot, a very Sam Shepard inspired character, who is the mold for individualism and self-sufficiency, lives in a humble but radiant cabin in the high desert north of Taos with his wife and daughter. During the summer the film is set in, his precocious, charming and near criminally brilliant 11 year old daughter, Bo, begins what is to become the narrative diary that carries you through her fathers unexpected slip into clinical depression. Her mother, Joan Allen, is a full blooded Hopi Indian and a naturalist of sorts, auto mechanic, gardener, hunter, gatherer, who teaches reading to convicted felons, and herself the voice of nightly readings to the family by oil lamp from Two Years Before the Mast. She tries to keep the family in check on less than $5000. annual income and help her husband through this draining ordeal, when suddenly they receive notice that the IRS will audit them for not paying taxes for 7 years. The IRS agent arrives and never leaves. He falls victim to, at first, a hornet sting that has him fevered for days. His own demons surface, having as a child discovered his mothers suicide by hanging in the front hall of his Brookline MA home andte weight of his self-imposed responsibility. On the road to recovery, he falls in love with Joan Allen, as we all do, and the love between all characters is simply amazing to observe. There is much more to life than working and paying taxes. The child, Bo, steals the show from an outstanding cast, a surreally serene setting, a scrumptious script, a soundtrack that sounds like Calexico or Friends of Dean Martinez, blended with The Delfonics, Billy Paul, Cliff Noble and Nixon's brilliantly placed resignation speech. Indian mysticism, White man's futility, peoples compassion and unbridled desire to experience are the underlying rhythms. The way in which the characters work their own way out of their personal traps is an inspiration. Written as a play and first presented on stage in Great Barrington MA, Off the Map is what it's title declares, but oh, what a destination.Movie Review: A Quiet Pleasure and a Treasure
Summary: 5 Stars
"Off the Map" (2005) is a strange but very affecting story. Those desert landscapes and that beautiful house will live on in my memory. The house has a thrown-together and homemade look, but it is a very beautiful house, beautifully decorated with probably found stuff, with open windows and an airy feeling. It's located at an isolated locale in the arid land, and there live a free-thinking family of three. The father (played by Sam Elliott) is going through a bad period of depression and is almost catatonic. The mother (Joan Allen), kind, loving and patient is raising and home-teaching an eleven-year-old girl, Bo Groden, of independence and with spirit, a basically happy child, but one who wants a credit card. The family live hand-to-mouth, and have canned enough food to last for years.
A screwed-up I.R.S. agent comes stumbling out of the desert, not in good shape after abandoning his car and walking for miles. He gets stung by a bee, has a bad reaction, and has to stay on for a bit; the bit turns out to be years. The father owes back taxes, but the agent more or less forgets about that. The ex-agent starts painting desert scenes and later becomes a sought-after artist whose work is worth a great deal of money.
The family friend, played by J. K. Simmons with great skill and empathy, is very helpful and almost a member of the clan.
It's an off-beat family and their former IRS agent who go through life listening to a different, more liberating drummer. Everyone in the movie seems so nice and good that you feel as if you're watching people from another galaxy. At times the mother and father walk around in the nude, and nobody cares.
It's a quiet, low-key movie with a strong story line that has a great deal to teach about living a simpler existence. It's a story that blankets you and comforts you with good characterization and acting. The mother stands out as a strong person with quiet determination. Many people live lives of quiet desperation; these people leads lives of quiet contentment. Worth seeing.
Movie Review: Who says movies have to have lots of explosions to be good?
Summary: 5 Stars
Off the Map is an amazing film that demonstrates the power of plot, location, acting, and directing in producing a great movie... no high explosives required.
The plot is simple. An 11 year old girl (Bo, played by Valentina de Angelis) is being home schooled by her parents in the simplest of homes... no water, phone, nor electricity. They live four miles from the nearest road, and survive for the most part on what they grow and hunt, and they work with a bartering and trading economy. However, the father (Charley, played by Sam Elliott) is now suffering a crippling depression, and the mother (Arlene played by Joan Allen) has reached the limits of what she can do. This status quo is changed when an awkward IRS agent (Jim True-Frost) shows up to see why they haven't submitted any tax forms for the past seven years. As it turns out, this visit precipitates a series of actions that profoundly affect this family.
The location is New Mexico, and you won't see many additional homes, cars, people, or appliances. There are no fast food restaurants or soft drink companies paying money to the producers for product visibility in this movie. Even the few beers consumed don't shout their brand names.
The actors are very, very well chosen and paired with their respective characters. Suffice it to say that the actors BECOME the characters. The opposite of this would be, say, Arnold the Governator becoming a teacher in Kindergarten Cop (brrrrrrr).
Finally, the director puts it all together in a simple tapestry of sets, lighting, minimalist dialogue, and action. The bonus features on the DVD are really nice at explaining the director's intent here.
All in all, this is another one of those films that slip into existence without ever getting the rave they deserve, becoming a quiet example of first class quality. Although this film is rated PG-13 for nudity, the nudity really is in the form of sketches. This is a plain PG all the way.
See with your best friends.
Movie Review: "Forty-One Feet Of The Ocean's Horizon" ~ The Curvature Of The Earth
Summary: 5 Stars
Charley (Sam Elliot) and Arlene (Joan Allen) live in a small home out in the middle-of-nowhere (New Mexico) with their twelve year old daughter Bo (Valentina De Angelis). Pennyless, they survive by trading what they grow in the garden for whatever essentials they need. It's a quiet, simple and relatively happy life for the Grodin's until Charley unexpectedly falls into a deep, prolonged depression. Now lost somewhere in his own inner world he has become almost immobile, uncommunicative and does little else but cry and drink water to replenish his bodily fluids.
Going bad to worse an IRS agent named William Gibbs (Jim True-Frost) appears on their doorstep to audit the Grodin's who haven't filed a tax return in six years. William is immediately bitten by a bee and has an allergic reaction, forcing him to remain with the Grodin's until he's feeling better. When he recovers he appears somehow different than he was upon arrival. Was it the bee sting, the Grodin's bohemian lifestyle or the enchanted New Mexico landscape that has brought about this profound change in their unexpected guest? William has discovered that "New Mexico is a very powerful place."
The film moves at a very slow, protracted pace in tune with the directorial objective of establishing the meaninglessness of time when living "off the map" and free of the constraints of jobs, schedules and responsibilities. If you're not prepared to give your full attention to the film from the beginning you are likely to quickly lose interest, but if you give yourself over to the experience and allow the New Mexico desert to envelope you a multi-faceted gem of a story awaits.
Marvelous performances by all, but the real star of this film is little Valentina De Angelis. She's definitely destined for greatness.