Search - Off the Map on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 3/30/2024...

The movie had an all-star cast of characters however, this overly long movie dragged along. Not Same Elliott's typical role but he did shine at times as did J.K. Simmons. The girl's narration was pretty annoying after a while. If you enjoy being dragged on the street, then this is for you. The film had its moments but the non-moments outweighed them. Don't go off the map!

Gloria B. (glowbird) from SPOKANE, WA
Reviewed on 9/22/2021...

This is a real hidden gem of a movie, and a staple in my personal collection. It is a compelling story of a family living off the grid, and while somewhat contemplative, is subtle in the layering of the NM landscape, the Land of Enchantment, with the human stories. The actors are perfect in their various roles. This is a very rich story, an artistic film that deserves more attention.

4 of 5 member(s) found this review helpful.

Sharon F. (Shar) from AVON PARK, FL
Reviewed on 3/14/2021...

This movie is what I would call a hidden gem. A really different plot, great acting, and an interesting movie.

1 of 2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Leah G. (Leahbelle) from NIPOMO, CA
Reviewed on 8/4/2012...

This movie was a big surprise and worth watching every minute of it. The characters are wonderful and the characters are very real.

2 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.

Slow, easy, spiritual, contemplative. A reward for the patie

Traveler | New England | 08/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

""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.)"

Enchanting, mesmerizing, spiritually intense

Luca Graziuso | NYC | 07/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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.
"

"Forty-One Feet Of The Ocean's Horizon" ~ The Curvature Of

Brian E. Erland | Brea, CA - USA | 10/16/2005

(5 out of 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."