Life boiled down to its essence is a series of boring events - showering, eating, driving, shopping, and finding a place to park your van. Life when you are broke is sad. The movie begins with the closing of a plant in Nevada where a widow played by Francis McDermott has worked for many years.
The entire town moves away, leaving the post office to discontinue the use of the zip code. She lives in her van and travels around the west on a shoestring. Lots of quiet spaces and lengthy shots of the countryside. McDermott meets a lot of poor people who share their modest philosophies and their strategies for dealing with life on the road. She takes a series of temporary jobs, then moves on.
It's not completely dreary, but it is not an upper. It's slow and depressing.
The script was empty. The cinematography was marginal. The direction was slow and there were gaps in the film that are not explained. It is difficult to evaluate the acting when the story is so vapid. It's a hard pass for me.
The entire town moves away, leaving the post office to discontinue the use of the zip code. She lives in her van and travels around the west on a shoestring. Lots of quiet spaces and lengthy shots of the countryside. McDermott meets a lot of poor people who share their modest philosophies and their strategies for dealing with life on the road. She takes a series of temporary jobs, then moves on.
It's not completely dreary, but it is not an upper. It's slow and depressing.
The script was empty. The cinematography was marginal. The direction was slow and there were gaps in the film that are not explained. It is difficult to evaluate the acting when the story is so vapid. It's a hard pass for me.
