Director: Debra Granik
Starring: Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie, Jeff Kober, Dale Dickey
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Runtime: 109 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2018

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Rating notes: Very mild themes

‘Leave No Trace’ tells a small story with painstaking sensitivity and unfiltered emotion. Filmmaker Debra Granik’s narrative follow-up to her attention-grabbing feature, ‘Winter’s Bone’, makes it clear that she’s interested in stories that stray from the well-trodden path. The story similarities are evident – both films are constructed around a father-daughter bond – but there are other calling cards too, including their star turns from unknown actresses (Thomasin McKenzie follows in the venerable footsteps of Jennifer Lawrence) and their sublime portrayals of the natural world. Granik remains a world class filmmaker, albeit one evidently content with her unique slice of Americana.

Will (Ben Foster), a veteran suffering from PTSD, lives in a National Park near Portland with his teenage daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie). They spend their days foraging for food, collecting fresh water, and maintaining their makeshift camp. On their rare trips into town, Will collects medication from the VA for his illness, which he sells to another vet to pay for some extra food and supplies. Granik and her cinematographer, Michael McDonough, capture the pair’s verdant surrounds with gorgeous, vibrant colour, humming with life. The sound design too emphasises the natural power and beauty that surrounds them. That this environment should soothe Will’s nightmares and anxiety feels right.

Will trains Tom in the art of evasion, running drills that send the duo sprinting through the undergrowth to hide from hypothetical enemies. The reason for these exercises becomes clear when local police find their camp, eventually locating the pair with a sniffer dog and taking them into custody (it’s illegal to live on public land, you see). After a series of interviews with a social worker, accommodation and work is found for Will and Tom on a tree farm in rural Oregon. While Tom settles in well to their new arrangement, making some local friends and showing interest in a “normal” life, Will cannot abide the changes, which gives rise to conflicts between the two, against which previous quibbles about whether to light their cooking fire with damp kindling or propane gas pale into insignificance. This discord grows into a somewhat inevitable defining moment in their lives together.

Clever writing from Granik and Anne Rosellini (adapting Peter Rock’s novel, ‘My Abandonment’) gives the cast plenty to work with, while Granik’s sensitive direction and apparent skill with her actors result in some special performances. Foster and McKenzie are both terrific in the leads. They give quiet, soulful portrayals that exhibit subtle flashes of pain through the cracks. McKenzie announces herself as a young talent to watch, conveying a blend of steely grit and awkward youthfulness that defines Tom’s strange upbringing. The chemistry between them is pitch perfect – McKenzie gazes at Foster with a stirring mixture of love and fear, pity and respect, and Foster captures both the guilt he feels for denying Tom a normal upbringing alongside the unwavering love and pride that burns for his intelligent and capable child. Foster is one of those actors that I find very difficult to lose inside a character – he simply looks too much like Ben Foster. However, playing Will, I was convinced for two-hours that maybe Ben Foster had joined the Army and fought and developed PTSD. His Will has a weary, lived-in quality alongside an inherent decency that make him a deeply compelling protagonist.

There are clear similarities to 2016’s ‘Captain Fantastic’, in which Viggo Mortenson’s father was at once both hero and villain, forthright in his convictions, noble in his intentions, but arguably rendering his children, home-schooled in the wilderness under his own alternative programme, unfit for the outside world. But where Matt Ross’ equally excellent feature emphasised the quirky, fish out of water elements of his dramedy, Granik drills into the primitive yet complex emotions that bind the protagonists, as well as the pressures that threaten to tear them apart. When Will and Tom’s emotional journey comes to a head, there may not be a dry eye left in the theatre. Despite its title, ‘Leave No Trace’ may leave some marks on your heart.

Callum Ryan is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting.