My icon plays depressed...

The beauty of Off the Map is hard to capture, to describe. It is an ephemeral, diaphanous, the sort of beauty that seems to stay just out of reach and slips between my fingers when I try to desribe it, to trap it, to nail it down. By the end of this gorgeous film, however, I found myself on the verge of tears, knowing that I would miss the off-kilter family on whom the film focuses.

Most of the reviews that I've read - Roger Ebert's in particular - give away too much of the story, warning you in advance of who would be coming into the film to stay and who would be drifting in for moments before moving onward, joining us only for a moment as their story intersects that of the main characters.

Don't let the vagueness disuade you, however, as the beauty of the film is in not knowing exactly where things are heading, whether feelings and events that pop up will be significant or simlpy will be subsumed into the undercurrents of the dynamics - never fully explained - between the beautifully crafted characters, each of whom is doing nothing more than finding their way through a simple life in the remote high plains outside of Taos, New Mexico - Land of Enchantment.

The film is marvelously acted by all involved - from the main character of Bo, played precociously by beautiful newcomer Valentina de Angelis, to Joan Allen, Sam Elliott, JK Simmons, and Jim True-Frost. Every part is a note-perfect character sketch, and the actors - under the guidance of Campbell Scott, whose work might require a look through if it's of this high a consistent quality - revel in the parts.

The story is far from linear, meandering through a summer and allowing us glimpses of the future that these characters would make for themselves in just the briefest of facts. We never get the whole story of either their pasts or of their futures, and in the end we know everything that we need to know about them, particularly through analogy with a beautifully done painting by Santa Fe artist Stan Berning.

A review from LA Weekly describes the film marvelously, and I will close by quoting it (as did an imdb.com reviewer from whom I get the quote):

From beginning to end, the movie achieves nearly complete originality of expression that makes it as anomalous a figure on today's independent film landscape as the film's characters are on theirs. Sequestered on a ranch deep in the recesses of rural New Mexico, a part-Hopi woman (Joan Allen), her catatonic depressed husband (Sam Elliot) & their precocious 11-year old daughter (Valentina de Angelis) live off the land...

The characters rarely do what we expect of them, while tragedy, absurdity and mordant humor are held in a precarious balance that recalls Sam Shepard at his best...

The ocean meets the sky in a cycloramic mural that, like the movie itself, is a small masterpiece of tone and form. To watch Off the Map is to be pulled into a private universe on the brink of civilization--from which, at the end of two hours, it is impossible to exit unaffected.