Cozy, a thirtyish Florida housewife bored to tears with her drudging life, runs away with Lee, a young loser in search of thrills. After accidentally shooting a man, Cozy and Lee try to go on the lam as every outlaw couple before them—without quite ever getting it right.

Before moving to Oregon, Kelly Reichardt made a fugitive film set in the Florida wetlands—more like the grungy filmmaking of Jim Jarmusch than her later slow cinema. Tailing wastrel lovers on the run, River of Grass shows she has been committed to America’s margins and outcasts from the very start.