Finding Off the Map on the Sundance or IFC channels is likely to take some effort, just as finding the Groden’s home in New Mexico does. Make that effort. It will be well worth your time. The plot:

During the early 1970's in the high plain desert near Taos, New Mexico, a family lives independently off the grid, in a modestly built adobe house with no lights or running water. There's a bountiful of family love, sun baked desert vistas, star-filled skies, and mystical coyotes.

Meanwhile, Gorden’s home-schooled 11-year old daughter named Bo (a terrific Valentina de Angelis), suffers growing pains as she longs for a more urban life. The movie is narrated by the adult Bo, played by Amy Brenneman, who looks back wistfully at this significant year in her life.

Bo occupies her time her time clipping store coupons and writing complaint letters to different manufacturers complaining about insect parts found in their products so she can get free merchandise for the family. Her father, Charley (the very versatile Sam Elliot) suffers from depression but the family cannot afford the medicine he needs to get better. Her mother Arlene (Joan Allen, in one of best roles) copes with all of these challenges with amazing internal strength and resolve.

The family lives off Charley’s meager veteran's benefits, the crafts and bartering of Arlene, and the scams of their percocious daughter who is the real brains of this operation. At one point, Bo manages to obtain a credit card and promptly buys a sailboat from a catalog, which the family can obviously not afford, but she does it in hopes the family will use it to go someplace where there is a lot of water.

Charley has a friend named George (J.K. Simmons), who sort of idolizes him. Sometimes they fish, sometimes they talk. Arlene wants George to impersonate Charley, visit a psychiatrist and get some antidepressants. George would rather fish.

Into their lives one day comes William Gibbs (Jim True-Frost), a young Internal Revenue Service field agent, who wants to find out why the Grodens have not filed for seven years. His first vision -- the right word -- is of Arlene gardening naked, and Gibbs is so entranced he absently lets a bee sting him. Gibbs suffers a serious reaction to the sting, and over the next several days the family slowly brings him back to health.

As it turns out, Gibbs is not happy with his life as an IRS agent and sees the Groden’s way of life as far preferable to his own. He gives up his job and moves in, leading to several humorous complications, until he decides what we really wants to be is a painter. To his surprise, Gibbs has a natural ability to capture the beautiful desolation of the Taos desert into works of art. One such watercolor, a 3 feet high by 41 feet long impression of the desert earth meeting the sky, become a sought-after masterpiece in the eyes of the art world. The presence of Gibbs and his art has a suprising effect on the family, and Charley is finally motivated back from the edge of his depression, as Bo comes to terms with love and loss.

Adapted by Joan Ackermann from her own play, Off the Map is not the sort of film you can put in a neat, labeled box. Its lack of a fast-pace has brought mixed reviews from some critics, but the deliberate pace gives the audience time to absorb the intelligence, the surprises, and the profound humanity of its characters. The only thing I can say is, if you like art house films, this is one you shouldn't miss.