As a review on IMDB remarked, some films benefit from an art cinema showing. The couple who talked (loudly) through the entire first half of Off The Map were evidence of that charge.
Off The Map is in many ways typical of USian independent cinema. It has vast, beautiful landscapes aplenty, characters whose quirks are remarkable and endearing (but not focal) and a story of the healing found in shared experiences. But while it may be at times derivative and rarely atypical, it is also evidence for the wonderful films that are often borne of that genre.
There may well have been a political point to the self-sufficient lifestyle so front-and-center in the film – the family that form the core cast live off the land and a few benefits – but it is portrayed such that we are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of that lifestyle. The daughter’s hankering for a chance to be a part of institutions of a society her parents have separated from, contrasted with the stranger in their midst’s embracing of their ways, gives us two proxies through which to explore their lives.
And woven through the film is the mysterious process of ‘art’ that gives the film its backbone. Highly recommended.
Tags: film | Off The Map