Leave No Trace (2018)

User Review

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  IsaVsTheMovies

  9 / 10

  2018 is quickly becoming a landmark year for independent films. Debra Granik’s “Leave No Trace” is the latest in this glorious trend. Starring incredible new talent Thomasin Mckenzie, “Leave No Trace” never reminds you that you’re watching a movie, it completely absorbs you into the lives of its two protagonists. It’s a small-scale movie that deprives the audience of any background or explicit explanation as to the why of its plot; in presenting a slice of the characters’ lives, it never waits for the audience to catch up.
  
  We are so used to very direct exposition in movies that when something like this comes along, we can’t help but feel that something is missing. Here, we aren’t really told why Will (Ben Foster) keeps running away from civilization to live in the woods with his daughter, Tom (Mckenzie). We don’t know how or when this started, and we don’t know if Tom was born into this way of life or forced into it. To the film, what matters most is what is happening to them now; there are only small clues of their past life and how that made them who they are, but besides these we are left to watch their journey unfold with nothing to inform us except what we see and hear in the present. So it may feel as if the film lacks a solid base to build its plot off of, but it is simply refusing to sacrifice realism for taking time to explain things to the audience. It doesn’t acknowledge our presence. The result is a totally immersive experience.
  
  Foster and Mckenzie give quiet, but intense performances. Both characters are very reserved and meek, but the actors give us the sense that there is a geyser of emotion within them they are plugging up. Undeniably, everyone will be talking about Mckenzie as the star here — and rightfully so. It is obvious how committed she was to this role and how natural her talent is; she does everything perfectly — down to the timbre of her voice — to give the sense of her character’s contained, ever-present anxiety. She expertly puts in certain mannerisms (like rapid eye movements) to make the character more vivid even when she happens to be silent. I’m certain I speak for her entire audience when I say I cannot wait to see what she does next.
  
  Just like in its actors, there is a subtle intensity to the film itself; although it contains really no riveting action or suspense, we still wait and watch carefully for something to happen to Tom and Will. The father-daughter-nomad duo moves about in constant search for (according to Will) a better home, but everything that happens to them assures us that they will not be able to sustain this way of life; they clash with society and they clash with each other more and more as the story progresses. Something has to happen, one of them has to change. That’s what drives the whole thing forward.
  
  I would count on “Leave No Trace” earning a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination in the coming awards season (adapted from Peter Rock’s novel My Abandonment). Never is there a scene or line of dialogue that doesn’t serve the plot in a positive way. There is a natural flow to the events that unfold and to the arcs that the characters undergo; when the finale — the most emotional part — finally comes, we don’t need a musical swell to make us feel something because the film has done its job: it has seamlessly connected us to the characters so we understand the deep significance of this final moment.

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