Like most such stories, “Bless This Mess” privileges the country over the town, prizes the hicks above the slickers. (It is almost always the city people who are changed by the country, in our mythmaking, and the country people who bring change to the city, though there are signs the couple may be of value in their new community.) To the extent that Mike and Rio patronize their neighbors, it’s not that they look down on them but that they invest them with magical qualities. (“That felt amazing; that was like a victory for me,” says Rio after a nodding interchange with a local.) Where the Nebraskans just live their lives, Mike and Rio compulsively narrate theirs, to themselves and each other, because they don't know who they are yet.

Source: Los Angeles Times April 16, 2019 13:52 UTC