Off the Map

In the movie Off the Map, what it meant to be an outsider was challenged for me. From a distance, It looked to me as though Mr. Gibbs was the only outsider. It was an open and shut case. As Mr. Gibbs approached a naked Arlene Groeden in the garden, he knew that things would be a little different with this family. The longer that Gibbs stayed with the Groedens on their farm, the more he realized everything he had been missing was everything that they had come to take for granted. However, as I started to pay closer attention to the movie and the intentions of the director, I noticed that things weren’t as simple as labeling Mr. Gibbs the only outsider. That’s when I realized that becoming an outsider, whether it be someone from the outside world or someone feeling like an outsider in their own world, was all based on perspective.

Gibbs was, by all my previous definitions, an outsider. He had never been far enough outside his own life to experience what the Groeden’s had, but he knew it was time for an escape.  Gibbs was changed the moment he was stung by a bee, a first for him, and the second he tried their delicious water. Gibbs’ related the Groeden’s in such a powerful way because they had everything he had ever needed but didn’t know he wanted; a mother that cared, a father faced with the same depression he had been struggling with all his life, a daughter thirsty for knowledge, and time. Lots and lots of time. The longer that Gibbs stayed, the more he began to feel at home. This was proven when the boat hauler asked if the family had received any of his calls, in which Gibbs replied “We don’t have a phone.” Gibbs saying that meant that he considered himself part of family and his days as an outsider were over. Bo stated it best when in reference to Gibbs she said, “Someone I considered as a link to the outside world has actually been swallowed in the quicksand of mine.” However, Gibbs’ would not be the only one to finally find his place.

Charlie Groeden was a man that had become an outsider in his own life because he had lost anything to relate to that could tether him down. For the entire film, it seemed as though he had simply become a spectator to his family and friends, on the outside looking in. The arrival or Gibbs changed all this, however. Charlie began to see more and more what he was missing out on in his own life. With every night-chat between the depressed lumps of Charlie and Gibbs, he began to get a peek into what he was missing out on. I’m not sure why Charlie went to Gibbs for a friend, maybe he had seen glimpses of himself in Gibbs’ demeanor or maybe he simply needed an outsider to feel comfortable with, but Gibbs and Charlie slowly became closer throughout their time together. Eventually Gibbs opened up Charlie’s eyes when he commented to Charlie during a late talk, “I admire you more than any man I’ve ever known.” He admired Charlie’s life in a way that would finally snap Charlie from his depressed haze. Shortly after saying this, Gibbs bursted into tears, and in that in that moment, I believe that Charlie got a look at what his family had seen for the past six months, and in that moment Charlie finally broke through the glass that made him a spectator and rejoined the world, all simply because he was able to relate to one person in a moment of sincerity.

All in all, my perceptions of outsiders were crushed. I had always believed an outsider to be someone that was from a far away place, and that it took an incredibly long time to be considered an ‘insider’. However, I realized after watching this film that I was dead wrong. Charlie had spent his entire life with his family, in the middle of nowhere, with no phones or electricity to distract them from each other, had become an outsider in his own life. Then there was Gibbs, a man from a far off land, sent to audit a family that he would come to call his own. Both these men spent far too much time as outsiders. However, lives were changed in a moment; a single moment of related clarity between two kindred spirits that would shatter a father’s depression and finally plant Gibbs’ roots in the desert sands of New Mexico when he had been running his whole life.