"Off the Map" is like a 1970's take on "Little House on the Prairie" with a dose of the realism of "Wisconsin Death Trip." We see these New Age pioneers in the beautiful high desert of New Mexico through the eyes of a precocious early teen girl, much like Anna Paquin's character in "The Piano" in another primitive, isolated environment. (The voice over of her as a grown-up tries to compensate for this limitation but is more annoying than additionally insightful.)
So we don't get much factual information on her family's lives, back story or explanations of their behavior deeper than what she sees and overhears, let alone how they came to live mostly off the grid. We get only hints of how Joan Allen became the supremely confident and capable Earth Mother that she is, something about her grandmother being a Native American healer, to dominate the screen as well as her daughter's life and everyone else's she touches.
As effectively though still talkily adapted by screenwriter Joan Ackermann from her play, the story hones in on one summer when the father, as played by Sam Elliott, is so depressed as to be literally catatonic-- we only get a glimmer near the end in one long, silent, resonant exchange of how the strength of the husband-wife bond got them through this emotional crisis. It is unusual to see the impact of a family member's depression on the rest of the family, as well as friends, though it's not clear if his buddy J. K. Simmons is still Korean War shell-shocked or just plain brain damaged.
The story, however, is not about the usual romantic triangles as it careers in an unexpected direction when Jim True-Frost (of "The Wire", where he also plays an unhappy naif who discovers his calling) wanders in and is even more blindsided by the scenery than we are. Until I saw the Sundance Channel's explanatory "Anatomy of a Scene" documentary, however, I was just confused by the selection of the pop song "Me and Mrs. Jones" as the ironic background to his epiphany, even while I was admiring the song selections throughout the movie.
Usually the point of bringing characters together in such an isolated, let alone Western, setting, a la Sam Shephard plays, is to force them to bounce off each other for uncovering secrets and making brutal realizations. Here, it seems the gentle theme is more how people can help give nature a little nudge to save our souls. Not a big revelation, and while it a bit mysteriously trails off at the end due to unnecessary foreshadowing and some of the plot incidentals just don't make a lot of sense, is still satisfying.
The make-up is unusually realistic and believable looking, from sun-burnt bodies to un-wigged-looking long hair.
So we don't get much factual information on her family's lives, back story or explanations of their behavior deeper than what she sees and overhears, let alone how they came to live mostly off the grid. We get only hints of how Joan Allen became the supremely confident and capable Earth Mother that she is, something about her grandmother being a Native American healer, to dominate the screen as well as her daughter's life and everyone else's she touches.
As effectively though still talkily adapted by screenwriter Joan Ackermann from her play, the story hones in on one summer when the father, as played by Sam Elliott, is so depressed as to be literally catatonic-- we only get a glimmer near the end in one long, silent, resonant exchange of how the strength of the husband-wife bond got them through this emotional crisis. It is unusual to see the impact of a family member's depression on the rest of the family, as well as friends, though it's not clear if his buddy J. K. Simmons is still Korean War shell-shocked or just plain brain damaged.
The story, however, is not about the usual romantic triangles as it careers in an unexpected direction when Jim True-Frost (of "The Wire", where he also plays an unhappy naif who discovers his calling) wanders in and is even more blindsided by the scenery than we are. Until I saw the Sundance Channel's explanatory "Anatomy of a Scene" documentary, however, I was just confused by the selection of the pop song "Me and Mrs. Jones" as the ironic background to his epiphany, even while I was admiring the song selections throughout the movie.
Usually the point of bringing characters together in such an isolated, let alone Western, setting, a la Sam Shephard plays, is to force them to bounce off each other for uncovering secrets and making brutal realizations. Here, it seems the gentle theme is more how people can help give nature a little nudge to save our souls. Not a big revelation, and while it a bit mysteriously trails off at the end due to unnecessary foreshadowing and some of the plot incidentals just don't make a lot of sense, is still satisfying.
The make-up is unusually realistic and believable looking, from sun-burnt bodies to un-wigged-looking long hair.