Kelly Reichardt's River of Grass (1994)

 Kelly Reichardt's River of Grass was her first film and she has stuck with her low-budget independence.  In my review of  Night Moves (5/27/21) I mentioned how she seemed effectively minimalist, almost Bressonian, in her approach, which is also true of this first feature, to some extent a critique of the "lovers on the run" genre (They Live by Night, Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, et al.), as Cozy (played by Lisa Bowman) and Lee (Larry Fessenden) are not in love, do not seem capable of a crime, and are not very much on the run because they don't even have the money for the toll road that will take them out of Florida. The film was made on location in scuzzy parts of Florida even as they are being developed and paved over, vividly echoing the novels of John D. MacDonald, and has a marginally sympathetic view of slackers without jobs, mothers who don't know how to take care of their children and cops who prefer jazz drumming and can't keep track of their guns.