(Thomasin
McKenzie & Ben Foster)
This sensitive, understated movie about a
traumatised war veteran and his teenage daughter living on the rustic margins
of American society is a quiet miracle. (Review by Patrick Compton - 9/10)
Aside from anything else she has achieved,
writer-director Debra Granik has launched the careers of two stellar actresses.
The first was Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s
Bone (2010) and the second is 18-year-old Thomasin McKenzie in this
remarkable film.
McKenzie plays Tom, the teenage daughter of
Will (Ben Foster). When we meet them, they have lived for some years on the
outer margins of American society, in the huge Forest Park just outside
Portland, Oregon. Here they make their own makeshift home in the woods,
visiting the city once a week for provisions.
One day, Tom, despite strict instructions
from her father to remain hidden, is seen by a passing jogger and this leads to
the police discovering the couple, removing them from the park and altering the
future course of their lives.
Leave
no Trace is by no means a pseudo-hippy paean to
going back to nature. The script – co-written by Granik and Anne Rosselini,
based on the novel My Abandonment by
Peter Rock – makes it clear that living in the bush is not for sissies. The
point is implied rather than spelt out, but we gather that the couple’s
situation has arisen because Will is allergic to social life because of
post-traumatic stress disorder suffered as a result of military service.
We quickly understand that Will’s character
won’t change, and that Granik’s real intention is to trace his daughter’s
journey of self-discovery, a process that leads to Tom gradually separating
herself from her father.
This is a film that is quietly, thrillingly
unusual. For a start, it knocks most Hollywood plot clichés firmly on the head.
There are no heroes and villains, no crude “character arcs” and no crass
ticking of thematic boxes. In fact, all the people we encounter are real,
caring, ordinary people, albeit that they live precariously on the edge of
American society.
Those who enjoyed Winter’s Bone can find some parallels in this movie, particularly
the sense that the director feels an intense empathy for fragile rural
communities, virtually invisible within the greater America.
Empathy, in fact, is the key word to
describe this film. It is to be found in the minimalist script, Granik’s
intimate direction and the brilliant performances of Ben Foster and Thomasin
McKenzie with the latter perhaps stealing the film and prompting Oscar talk.
Leave
no Trace opened at Gateway on September 21. - Patrick
Compton
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