| TITLE: | "Off The Map" | AUTHOR: | Joan Ackermann |
| GENRE: | Drama | CIRCA: | 1971 |
| LOCATION: | New Mexico | PAGES: | 97 |
| SUB TO: | **** | SUB BY: | **** |
| READER: | SC | DATE: | March 5, 2001 |
LOGLINE: precocious 11-year-old girl befriends a budding artist to cope with her father's depression.
COMMENT SUMMARY: "Off the Map" is an uncommon, impressionistic drama that succeeds in weaving characters, art, and the deserts of northern New Mexico into a uniquely affecting screenplay. The story is both simple and elusive. This is not a script that breaks down into typical acts and plot points. It is easy, initially, to view the story as episodic and unstructured. However, the story gradually gains weight and momentum, even as it appears deeply rooted in the most ordinary of life's aspects. The script's greatest triumph is its characters. Bo, the child protagonist, absolutely comes alive. Both her parents, and the mysterious William Gibbs, evolve into three dimensional human beings. The characters are constantly surprising, touching, and human. The dialogue is outstanding—with the notable exception of the adult Bo, whose poetic voice over occasionally sounds overblown. Structurally, the script is atypical yet effective. The story is arranged around theme and character, not events. The setting is a vivid and vital part of the whole.
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BUDGET: Medium/Low
RECOMMENDATION: Recommended
SYNOPSIS: ADULT BO, late thirties, holds a card labeled, "Memorial Service" in Salt Lake City. Dissolve to Northern New Mexico, where BO, eleven years old, lives in open country with her parents, ARLENE and CHARLEY. Charley is suffering from deep depression. Arlene gets a letter saying the IRS is auditing them. This is funny; the family lives in poverty, earning only a few thousand dollars a year.
Later, as Arlene works, naked, in her garden, IRS man WILLIAM GIBBS arrives. William, 28, has been walking for hours looking for Charley and Arlene's farm. William is struck by the beauty of the landscape--and Arlene. He explains who he is. Arlene is friendly, not at all concerned or hostile. A hornet stings William. He has an allergic reaction and collapses. Arlene brings him in. She and Bo care for him while he is unconscious.
Bo is fascinated by William. She asks him many questions about the outside world. She is particularly interested in the Ocean: what does it look like? When William recovers, he learns that his car (parked miles away) has been stripped. Arlene says she'll take him to the junkyard to find parts for it. William tells Arlene that he loves her. Arlene thanks him, but cautions him, saying New Mexico is a powerful place which easily overwhelms outsiders. She invites William to stay as long as he likes. William accepts her offer.
William is amazed by how Bo and her family live without money. They live off the land, making or salvaging all the goods they need. William also continues to be awed by the desert landscape. He begins a nude sketch of Arlene, then covers it over with blue paint. Two and a half weeks later, he finished the painting, a thirty-one foot long panorama of the ocean for Bo. Arlene, meanwhile, has figured out all the penalties they owe the IRS. She gives the figures to William. He says he doesn't work for the IRS any more.
William begins another painting--this time of Arlene working in her garden. They get a surprise delivery: a sailboat. Bo has applied for an American Express card. With the card, she purchased a sailboat from California for her father's birthday. The delivery man has a set of instructions written in crayon to find Charley and Arlene's farm. Arlene doesn't know how they'll repay the bill. But Charley likes the boat.
Charley spends the nights sitting in the boat, staring up at the stars. Occasionally, William joins him. William tells a story about his past, about he blamed himself as a child for his mother's death. Somehow, the story moves Charley, breaking through his depression. The moment seems to heal something in both men. The next day, Charley begins making paints for William. For the first time in a long while, Charley hugs and kisses his wife, telling her not worry about the American Express bill.
William Gibb's first painting sells for $9000 (and later for $250,000), enough to pay the Amex and the tax bill, and get braces for Bill. Back in the present, adult Bo finishes reminiscing about her childhood and prepares to attend William's funeral. William was found dead out in the New Mexico desert, staring up at the sky. THE END.
COMMENTS: Joan Ackermann's "Off the Map" appears at first glance to be just another cluttered, confused, overly melodramatic author's memoir. For readers with patience, however, the script ultimately reveals itself to be that rarest of creatures: a fully realized screenplay.
Those seeking story and structure in the first ten pages will soon be shaking their heads. Additionally, the script begins with its biggest weakness: the pseudo-poetic narration of its protagonist as an adult (most everything dealing with Bo's adult life is soft, in fact). These two traits serve as an unfortunate barrier to the genuine pleasures "Off the Map" has to offer.
Perhaps we first begin to realize that something special is happening here when William Gibbs, the tax man, arrives and announces himself to Bo's household. We expect many things—shouting, hysterics, a wild confrontation involving a shotgun, perhaps. Instead, William is welcomed into the family like a long lost relative.
The author consistently finds ways to surprise us. It first appears that her dramatization of clinical depression will be deeply misguided, simplistic, or immature. Instead, the script views Charley's depression from a distinctly humanistic tilt, eschewing drugs or simple answers, asking instead what it means to lose one self, and how, through ordinary yet magical moments, one can find one's self again.
"Off the Map" does have a underlying plot and story—and it's an interesting one (involving William Gibb's birth as a brilliant artist)—yet that plot and story remain mostly in the background. This is a script interested above all else in its characters. Without fuss or apparent effort, the screenplay breathes life into its characters, making them human and familiar to us, drawing us into their world.
The dialogue is similarly outstanding. The child Bo is a sharp observer, brimming with wit and unconscious irony, a child trying to make sense of an essentially unknowable world. The adults communicate reams with the simplest of phrases. This is unquestionably the work of a screenwriter with the highest of skill in crafting character and dialogue.
The payoff is an ending where not much happens, plot-wise, yet where the story's emotional impact peaks into a fine crescendo. Interwoven throughout are deeply symbolic images of the desert, so that word and image blends into art.
reader's notes:
When a script like this hits your desk, you hope you can catch it. By the elements, "Off the Map" was a weak, poorly-organized screenplay that looked like an easy Pass. Sometimes, however, a good reader is able to look past the page, with all its problems, and see the possibilities instead. "Off the Map" was a quirky, inescapably special script that became an enchanting little film.