River of Grass has all the elements of a nventional road movie: a car, a gun, criminal plans, and young lovers on the run from an angry father who also happens to be a suspended police officer. But writer and director Kelly Reichardt has instead taken these familiar elements and fashioned an anti-road movie, a deadpan film that is more existentialist edy than crime drama. The young lovers in question are Cozy, the p's daughter, and Lee Ray, a shady character from the wrong end of town. Lee Ray es into possession of a pistol, and soon he and Cozy find themselves unintentionally involved in a shooting. Fearing capture by the law, the two make plans to leave town, mitting a series of robberies on the way. However, they don't manage to get very far; indeed, the film's central premise is how the romantic myth of lovers on the lam ves disappointing in the face of a far more pedestrian reality. This well-received, low-budget indie was shot on location in South Florida, placing its story against an appriately depressed landscape of sun-bleached strip malls, barren highways and overgrown, swampy fields; the title is another name for the Florida Everglades.