Off the Map (2003)

Director:

Campbell Scott

Writers (WGA):

Joan Ackermann (play)
Joan Ackermann (screenplay)

Release Date:

11 March 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

A Very Powerful Place

Plot:

An 11-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries and comes to terms with love and loss. |

Plot Keywords:

Desert | Childhood Memory | New Mexico | Depression | Based On Play

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Amy Brenneman	...	Adult Bo
Valentina de Angelis	...	Young Bo
Joan Allen	...	Arlene
Sam Elliott	...	Charley
J.K. Simmons	...	George
Boots Southern	...	Rusty
J.D. Garfield	...	Romero
Jim True-Frost	...	William Gibbs
Matthew E. Montoya	...	Store Clerk
Kathy Griego	...	Consuela
William Hart McNicholas	...	Interpreter
Timothy Martinez	...	Priest
J.D. Hawkins	...	Jack
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Kevin Skousen	...	Don

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for nudity and thematic elements.

Runtime:

108 min (Sundance Film Festival) | USA:105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Australia:M | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:13 | Brazil:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Company:

Holedigger Films

Quotes:

George: [about his psychiatrist] I might ask her to marry me.
Arlene: Marry you? George, really?
George: She's a gentle person. She's very thoughtful. She cares.
Arlene: You pay her to care. George, you ought not to confuse romance with business.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Anatomy of a Scene: Off the Map" (2004)

Sweet Salve for the Soul

"Off the Map" is an "old-fashioned" film that made me feel, in the immortal words of Frank Zappa, that it's f*cking great to be alive. This film took me to a place in my heart I haven't been since the wonderful Bill Forsyth ("Local Hero") faded from the movie-making scene. It is high time for humane, gentle, wholly original stories of people and places off the map (or in our technological dystopia, perhaps `off the radar screen' would be more appropriate) to fill our movie dreamscape again. New Mexico is the only place in the United States this could have been filmed because, indeed, only the Land of Enchantment could have fit this gorgeous, lyrical story so well.

There wasn't a single relationship in this film that wasn't unique and fully realized. We've seen these set-ups before: the school-girl crush of Bo for William Gibbs, the awe-inspired worship of William for Arlene, the friendship between Charley and George. But don't we always get the caricatures, the popcorn images that point out the woeful arrested development of our country and its mythmakers? We think we want to be young forever. But it takes a film like "Off the Map" to show us all the richness we're missing out on by not growing up. (And the casting and direction of this ensemble of actors was nothing short of genius, especially Joan Allen. It's nice someone can see her as something more than middle-class white bread and pull this very individualistic performance out of her.)

I'm feeling kind of emotional just thinking about some to the great scenes in this film: when Charley runs 20 miles to George's house and goads him into wrestling; when Charley and William talk about what it feels like to be depressed; when William watches Arlene standing naked in her garden watching the totemic coyote; when Bo extracts from George the information she needs to apply for a MasterCharge card; Arlene reading Bo's letter in the newspaper advice column; Bo thanking the squirrel for giving up its life to feed her and her family; George's presence, like an old pair of sneakers, in the Groden home.

Like I said before, I didn't think people made films like this anymore. Thank you, Campbell Scott, for proving me wrong.