And not just because every major-mid-level city is named over and over in the crisscross of rail stops and homespun allusions; the characters collect and disperse in waves, in and out and around and down like so many choreographed, beach-bound balloon marches. And the niggling dread of picturesque foothills and dusty roads that time, impossibly, forgot undercut with G.I. buggy scrap metal. Slats of light as characters. And landmines. It’s shot like a novel.