Off the map

I'd give it a 75% mark, out of a hundred. Quirky story of a famiuly living off the grid in New Mexico. They get by on less than $5,000 a year, from the man's veterans benefits and their selling of stuff. They get some things and services they need through barter. They home-school their daughter.

As the movie opens young Bo is exploring her world as her mother, Arlene, struggles to hold the family together amidst her husband Charley's deep depression. Their friend George visits, hangs out silentlym eats, and takes Bo out fishing. Into this life enters an IRS agent. Finding Arlene naked gardening, he is enraptured, and then stung by a bee, falling into a deep fevered illness.

There is a lot of melodrama, Charley's depression and Arlene's quirkiness not so much explored as exposed; William's psyche is troubled by a memory he begins to believe is not real, but it is not altogether clear why; only Bo's role works well. The movie promises to be more than it becomes, and falls flat.