Leave No Trace – first look review

The title of Debra Granik’s stun­ning new film res­onates in a num­ber dis­tinct ways. Ini­tial­ly it seems as if it’s qui­et­ly con­cerned with the idea of exist­ing off the grid, cul­ti­vat­ing a life untouched by com­mer­cial­ism, tech­nol­o­gy and the cap­i­tal­ist scourge which pro­motes waste­ful­ness through in-built obso­les­cence. As much as it sig­nals the rejec­tion of one sys­tem, it pro­motes the embrace of anoth­er, one which relies on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and eth­i­cal thinking.

As its des­per­ate­ly sad sto­ry devel­ops, that title takes on a more mys­te­ri­ous hue; it embraces the idea of not want­i­ng to leave a per­son­al mark on the world, whether through shame, respon­si­bil­i­ty or maybe even devel­op­ing psy­chosis. It looks at sev­er­ing emo­tion­al ties with peo­ple and places through any means nec­es­sary, as well as the heart­break­ing impos­si­bil­i­ty of a total world­ly dis­con­nect (shy of death) and the bit­ter­sweet ram­i­fi­ca­tions of even­tu­al­ly find­ing inner peace.

Will (Ben Fos­ter) and his inquis­i­tive daugh­ter Tom (Thomasin McKen­zie) live hap­pi­ly in a tent pitched in a pub­lic park. They col­lect rain water in a tarp, eat for­aged mush­rooms and bed down togeth­er in a tiny tent. They play chess, leaf through an illus­trat­ed ency­clo­pe­dia and occa­sion­al­ly amble into town to pick up supplies.

Granik parcels out infor­ma­tion as care­ful­ly as Will and Tom mon­i­tor the propane sup­ply on their gas burn­er. Yet she’s not hold­ing back some con­trived twist or a big, tone-shift­ing reveal – it’s sim­ply an hon­est (and sub­tly tense) reflec­tion of what it’s like to observe two char­ac­ters whose inter­ac­tions tran­scend the need for dia­logue. It’s a case of dis­cern­ing the dif­fer­ence between what they’re say­ing and what they’re think­ing. In fact, this film is about the moment where father and daugh­ter not only lose sight of their seem­ing­ly unbreak­able bond, but realise that there may have been no bond in the first place. Or, at least, their utopi­an ideals of lone­some sur­vival are for dif­fer­ent reasons.

Tom loves her father, and the feel­ing is very much mutu­al. But Will’s head is not in a place where he’s able to reveal the final des­ti­na­tion of their seem­ing­ly end­less jour­ney across America’s rur­al north­ern states. He is dri­ven by the drug of per­pet­u­al escape, while Tom’s love is put to the ulti­mate test as she has to con­stant­ly attempt to sec­ond guess what’s dri­ving her increas­ing­ly irra­tional pops. She knows the secret behind his moti­va­tions, but has only now begun to com­pre­hend them.

They are moved on from their idyl­lic bolt­hole and an attempt is made to rein­te­grate the pair into polite soci­ety. Tom likes this change of scenery, but the drab tract hous­ing and hum-drum nature of the set-up makes Will more antsy than ever to locate that per­fect lone­li­ness. It’s a road movie, but also a two-han­der char­ac­ter piece pow­ered by a pair of beau­ti­ful­ly nuanced and fine­ly judged per­for­mances. Granik nev­er strains to dot the sto­ry with reg­u­lar dra­mat­ic peaks and troughs, instead man­ag­ing to build and sus­tain an atmos­phere where every moment and every char­ac­ter is charged with raw and real emo­tion. Describ­ing Leave No Trace as a tear­jerk­er bare­ly scratch­es the surface.

The aspect which nudges the film into the realms of great­ness is its exquis­ite­ly empa­thet­ic por­trait of the Amer­i­can under­class­es, those peo­ple who have noth­ing but still scrab­ble to make a hum­ble offer­ing as and when they can. The dra­ma of Will’s break­down and Tom’s dis­ori­en­ta­tion is all the more impact­ful when framed against the idea that they are being invis­i­bly lift­ed on the shoul­ders of those that cross their path, to the extent where the sto­ry even takes the form of a rugged Chris­t­ian para­ble. It’s a lumi­nous and immac­u­late­ly ten­der piece about gen­eros­i­ty and the lim­its of gen­eros­i­ty. Look out for it name-checked in the best of 2018 round-ups.