Off the Map
by Campbell Scott
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Actor: Amy Brenneman, J.K. Simmons, Joan Allen, Sam Elliott, Valentina de AngelisDirector: Campbell Scott
Brand: Sony
Producer: Campbell Scott
Producer: David Newman
Producer: George VanBuskirk
Producer: Jonathan Filley
Producer: Martin Garvey
Producer: Nesim Hason
Writer: Joan Ackermann
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-08-09
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Off the Map
DVD Review: "New Mexico is a very powerful place, it's a little overwhelming"
Summary: 4 Stars
Off the Map certainly boasts some of the finest acting one is likely to see in a movie this year. This combined with the beautifully realized vistas of New Mexico desert make for a beguiling and quite watchable film. However, the main problem with Off The Map is that there's not that much of a story; plot elements go in and out, up and down, and around about, but there's really not that much to tie them all together.
Smart dialogue hangs in the air, artistic metaphors constantly abound, and the film is certainly told with an intelligence and maturity, so perhaps the lack of a discernable plot shouldn't really matter that much. Off The Map comes across as more of a character study than a forward-moving, action-fuelled drama, a film where the characters have been plopped down with exquisite photographic care in the desert, and where good actors star and make the most of their meaty roles.
Narrated by Bo Groden (Amy Brenneman), Off the Map tells of Bo (Valentina de Angelis) when she was eleven years old and when she lived off the land, protected from the outside world by Arlene (Joan Allen) and Charley (Sam Elliot), her hippie, counterculture parents. It is 1974 and for years the Grodens have been living in the middle of the desert, far from main roads. They grow, harvest, and/or kill all their own food, own their own home, and make what little money they need from crafts.
They have no phone or indoor plumbing, walk around naked with impunity, and haven't paid taxes in several years. They're also totally in tune with the natural world, having spirit-like relations with a bear and coyote that visit their land regularly. Things begin to change, however, when into their virtually idyllic lives, comes William Gibbs (a terrific Jim True-Frost), an IRS auditor from, Brookline.
But William turns out to be anything but the malevolent taxman. In reality, he's a chronically depressed naive dork, who is so taken with the image of a naked Arlene that he gets himself stung by bees and slips into a delusional fever.
Nursed back to health by mystical Hopi folk remedies, Gibbs gradually falls under the spell of the landscape - and the Grodens, and decides that he is never going back to the office. Instead, he becomes an artist, painting striking watercolors of the desert landscape and sky. Having fallen in love with Arlene, the family let him stay as long as he likes.
That's pretty much the plot. What little else that happens involves Bo's increasing fascination with Gibbs and credit cards, and Arlene's struggles with Charley's depression. At one stage, Arlene begs their best friend George (J.K. Simmons Gibbs), a laconic redneck to visit a psychiatrist and pretend he's depressed so that they can get some much-needed drugs for Charley.
While Bo, who is a whiz at hunting and also a kind of precocious know-it-all, likes to stroll through Kmart, or imagine what it would be like to work in an office and go to a public school, Charley, overtaken with his unexplained depression, can barely even talk and mopes around silently while drinking nonstop glasses of water to replenish his tear ducts.
Meanwhile, Arlene is sick and tired of having to make all the decisions and wishes Charley could just get back in his feet and do something about all the back taxes they owe. She's also surprised when Gibbs tells her that he loves her, explaining to him that the landscape has made him feel this way; gradually she becomes enamored of the handsome young man.
There's no doubt that Off The Map is gorgeous to look at, but the film, as a whole, comes across as a little piecemeal. We get occasional glimpses into the characters past, but nothing ever conclusive or substantial - Charley's reasons for depression are never fully explained and the relationship between Charley and George is never really substantiated - all we can gather is that they liked to wrestle together a lot.
By far the most interesting and compelling character is William Gibbs, and his reasons for suffering depression - which resulted from a childhood trauma - are beautifully played out. The director, Campbell Scott should have probably focused more on telling the story from the point of view of Gibbs rather than Bo, because her story, which fuels the narrative, just seems as if it's inherently the least interesting. Mike Leonard August 05.
Description of Off the Map
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