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42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slow, easy, spiritual, contemplative. A reward for the patient viewer., August 25, 2005
"Off the Map" reminded me a bit of "Lost in Translation." The stories are completely different, of course. But there is a similarity in tone and texture. Both movies are more interested in showing the audience how their characters change and evolve than in advancing a traditional plot with a conflict and resolution. Some people who disliked "Lost" might like "Off the Map." However, I'm almost certain that anyone who did like "Lost" will find this movie as equally enjoyable.
The plot of this movie has been written about several times here so I won't repeat most of it. Briefly, it's about a family of three, two parents and a young girl, who live in a secluded house in New Mexico (no running water, no electricity) and live on less than $5000 a year, who are visited by a young inexperienced IRS agent. The story is about how they all change as their lives intertwine in the midst of the beauty of the New Mexico high desert.
New Mexico in itself is a character in this movie. I briefly lived in Santa Fe and I completely related to the IRS agent's feeling of awe and inspiration. Unlike some other viewers, however, I felt that the movie failed to convey some of the majesty of the region. In one of the extras on the DVD the producers talked about how they didn't want to make the scenery "too beautiful," as if it were some form of tourism porno. Perhaps the problem is that I saw the movie on the small screen and not the theater because it seemed to me that they went too far in the other direction. I have stood in the desert, like the IRS agent, and felt overwhelmed and inspired. I understood the character's reaction, but didn't really see why he was reacting the way he did within the context of what they were showing in the movie.
Which brings me to one of the best moments in the movie. The IRS agent thinks he's in love with Arlene, the mother, who appears to be mildly amused by his attention. There's a key moment when "Map" shifts into gear as the agent gazes upon the New Mexico scenery as the sexy song "Mrs. Jones" plays on the radio. As the producers commented, in another movie this would be the moment that the affair began, not smoldered and blew out.
The acting throughout is human and true. There's not a weak performance in the entire movie.
"Off the Map" won't be the most exciting movie you've ever watched. But it is a rewarding experience that shows you just how good the movies can be, despite all the cliche tripe that passes for entertainment at the multiplex.
(Note: If you crave more I recommend the book "The Handyman" by Carolyn See. "Map" borrows a few key elements from the book which tells the story of a young artist and how he changes people's lives as he works as a Mr. Fix It in southern California. It's not as good as this movie (surprisingly), but it does continue the story of art, contemplation and changing people's perspectives on the world.)
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting, mesmerizing, spiritually intense, July 29, 2008
The gentle rhythm of the movie is a gesture that penetrates the mysterious glow of nature with intense wisdom. I cannot recommend this movie enough. Director Campbell Scott accentuates the poetry of nature through a stark depiction of a land stripped of human adulteration. The movie is an adaptation of Joan Ackerman's play that centers on the isolated Groden family, Arlene (Joan Allen), Charley (Sam Elliott), and their precocious daughter Bo (Valentina de Angelis) who live in a state of depressed civilization, an abode that is under a spell of an involuted economy where money is but an afterthought and nature the true protagonist. The Groden family has no phone, no running water, no tv, and no neighbors aside from coyotes and bears, both of which end up dead in a ritual of nature that will have you transcend the usual materialist self-serving appropriation of the symbiotic aggregates of life. Survival is more of an internal issue for the family rather than an economic one. Civilization seems to have been dismissed in favor of a love for their landscape and the appeal of a spiritual dynamism that has yet to be "put on the map" by the commercial prints of the "world".
One day a hapless IRS agent, William Gibbs (Jim True-Frost), arrives at their house for an auditing, issued by the government, for the Grodens had not filed in seven years. A Massachusetts native who has transfer to Albaquerque and adopted a new profession, which has buried him deeper into the symptoms that distinguish a cog in the wheel of our civilized machine. The agent will become enchanted with the lifestyle, the landscape and the bewitching simplicity that nestles the Grodens everyday existence. He will end up staying with the family sucked by the aridity of cares that seem to barter with his ease of consciousness and habitual indifference.
The New Mexico desert offers a contemplative universe to the IRS agent who, betaken by Arlene's beauty and the mystical flux of her spiritual transparency, becomes invested by an artistic bent that will alleviate the economic strains the Grodens are about to suffer due to the penalties they incur for neglect to file their taxes. The mesmerism and the intimacy of their simplicity is fraught with an evocative sterility that has beset the head of the household, Charlie, who suffers a deep-rooted depression that will haunt him for half a year. This is the most interesting aspect of the movie. Charlie will detain his energy and become insignificant to the family he had been an ingenious resourceful maverick to. He was the intelligence which had allowed for such a dissident lifestyle to work, while Arlene was the soul that fitted such a naked world. The arrival of the IRS agent signals a movement away from the grieving for the void that surrounds Charlie and a return to celebrate the beauty that this same void elicits.
Bo is an insouciant, eloquent, witty, imaginative, young and dazzling virago that prowls about the story as years removed she piques her memory to disinter the events of the summer when her dad was suffering from such a depression. She narrates from different angles devolving into her return to her family's home at the conclusion of the movie, the setting of her reminiscing journey. The narrative does not offer a rush of action, but it does deliberate and exhilarate through the languid force of a natural mysteriousness, all aglow, illusive and compelling, abounding in its raw powers and contagion, we are absorbed by a dramatization where consciousness seems to be but the infusion, the curving point where the horizon swallows our vision as it dissipates: the vanishing point where humans become but the best interpretive agency that draws boundaries between life and death unaware of its transcendental beauty.
Watch it and own it so that you may be delighted by repeated viewings. The layers of meanings are prodigious and profound. This movie succeeds in animating what great novels do in several hundred pages. It gives life to the dynamism of nature, lyrically startles and emotionally it reaches for a wasteland where desires are anchored in a barren immense.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Right At The Heart Of It All, March 6, 2006
The action in this film, such as it is, takes place quite literally "off the map" on a self-sufficient single-family homestead lost in the austere and exquisitely beautiful expanse of New Mexico scrubland. But the movie's essence is a strong argument for the idea that there is no map to guide people where they must go, on the journeys that will heal them and give their lives meaning. All the people in this superb film, definitely worth tracking down and owning, go on such journeys, not because they intend to, but because their lives intersect and prompt change, however subtle.
The "star" and narrator is Bo Groden, played faultlessly by Valentina de Angelis. Her story concerns a year in her life when she was 12 or so, told in flashbacks recalled as an adult. Despite living a virtually medieval existence, no running water or electricity, she is highly sophisticated with a keen interest in the outside world. (Her letters to customer service departments and newspaper advice columns are simply delightful and showcase her intelligence, charm, and innocence simultaneously.)
Bo's mother Arlene, the family's anchor, is realized with subtlety and finesse by Joan Allen. Arlene manages to be playful, responsible, compassionate, and firm all at once, never losing sight of what's important. Her husband Charley is another story. Sam Eliott is dazzling as a man locked down in a paralyzing depression. These people do not romanticize anything, and watching Bo and Arlene work around Charley's black cloud is often intentionally funny.
Into this equation comes William Gibbs, Jim True-Frost, who is, of all things, an IRS agent. For an IRS agent this would be the most improbable assignment of a lifetime. That it's his first, and that he clearly dislikes the work, compounds the dilemma. Gibbs quickly morphs from attacking outsider to dependent insider and is absorbed into this wonderfully generous and real group of people. He develops an idealized love for Arlene and a profound admiration for Charley. When he begins painting it is clear that something has happened to him, he has turned a corner.
Just as the old story goes about one cow in one barn starting the great Chicago fire, so the presence of Gibbs and his soul-searching injects just enough passion into the equation to transform this whole family, in ways that are entirely heartwarming. Bo becomes less adult and gets more of the parenting she needs, Charley regains a grip on what's great about life, and Arlene gets her husband back. With the exception of a coyote being killed, the film contains no violence at all. In perfect keeping with the movie's spiritual perfection, the coyote's death is an occasion for grief, making amends, and redemption. If you have trouble getting your hands on a copy of this movie, get a better map.
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