Leave No Trace

In her third feature film, Leave No Trace, Debra Granik (Down to the Bone, Winter’s Bone) adapts Peter Rock's 2009 novel My Abandonment about an army veteran and his twelve-year-old daughter living off the grid in Portland Oregon’s Forest Park. Ben Foster (Hell or High Water, Lone Survivor, The Messenger) plays Will, a dad unwilling to follow anyone’s rules but his own and who insists on raising his daughter the same way. Eighteen year-old New Zealand actress Thomasin McKenzie plays as Tom, his loving, obedient but independent minded daughter. Though there is tension in their relationship and dangers all around them, Leave No Trace unfolds with little sense of urgency. Even its ostensible chase scenes have a languid sense of futility. This slow paced, directionless quality is not a flaw but rather what makes the film so fascinating.

My Abandonment was inspired by a true story and Granik goes to great lengths to create a fictional movie devoid of any narrative or cinematic heightening. Her pictures have all focus on marginalized Americans living on the edge of society and of survival. Her work always has an authentic, “lived-in” quality, but this movie is even more stripped down an observational than her two previous efforts—both of which scored multiple awards and nominations for her and her lead actors. It’s unlikely that this film will launch McKenzie into super stardom the way Winter’s Bone did Jennifer Lawrence, or that Foster will garner the kind of attention here that his showier “crazy guy” turns have won him. But these are two of the year’s best performances none-the-less. We learn so much about these two people by watching them make the simplest of choices and take the most basic of actions. In Foster’s case, it is often Will’s frozen non-reactions that reveal the most about him. 

Other films, like Matt Ross' Captain Fantastic (2016) or Sean Penn's Into the Wild (2007), cover similar subject matter as Leave No Trace, but as satisfying as those pictures are, they don’t get under your skin the way Granik’s movie does. There is deep, non-judmental, unexploitative compassion for these characters, and a genuine humanity that feels both tragic and inspiring.