No convulsive dramatic pivots. No forced plot contrivances. No artificial conflict.
No, Off the Map walks that much-less-taken cinematic path: It simply watches life in motion, unearthing truth in the beautiful quiet and quiet turbulence of one family's lives.
A 2003 Sundance entrant, it's presumably released now to dovetail with star Allen's kudos from The Upside of Anger.
This is a rustic, exceptionally subtle piece of behavior-based filmmaking in which pauses speak louder than words, and words are chosen with care.
With an observational, nearly poetic eye, director Scott studies a live-off-the-land clan in the ruggedly remote (and gorgeously lensed) desert of Taos, New Mexico, circa 1974. (Whether they're leftover hippies or just alternative lifestylers is never specified.) They live sparesely but contentedly in a simple adobe house, have no phone, TV or indoor toilet, grow their own food, and get by on monthly $320 veteran benefits.)
As narrated by grown-up daughter Bo (Amy Brenneman) looking back on her unusual upbringing, she recalls the crippling depression of her father (a heartbreaking Elliott) one summer and its impact on his wife (a nuanced, earth-motherly Allen in long, straight brown hair) and precocious 11-year-old Bo (played with engaging spirit by Valentina de Angelis, a vibrant little bundle of acting chops, and a genuine discovery).
What emerges from this premise—a wandering IRS man who stops in to audit them and winds up staying eight years and becoming a nature-embracing painter, the spiritual salve of coyotes, the blessings of the land, a desert-dweller touched by the gift of a sailboat, the process of people falling into and climbing out of their pain, while uncovering untapped corners of themselves—coalesces into a fascinating human patchwork on a small, intimate scale.
Campbell peeks into the lives of People more than Plot, and his actors respond with stunning sensitivity.
Allen displays yet another color in her rainbow-like range, and as her husband's best friend, J.K. Simmons (TV's Law & Order shrink) carves an affecting portrait out of a nearly monosyllabic character.
But it's Elliott (his deeply craggy face looking like it could absorb a gallon of rainwater), as a strong, proud man laid low by an emotional prison he desperately doesn't understand, who invests this film with an often silent nobility.
Off the Map is a cinematic tone poem in a lovely minor key.