Leave No Trace (film)


Leave No Trace is a 2018 American drama film directed by Debra Granik and written by Granik and Anne Rosellini, based on the 2009 novel My Abandonment by Peter Rock. The plot follows a military veteran father with posttraumatic stress disorder who lives in the forest with his young daughter. The novel is based on a true story. It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was theatrically released by Bleecker Street in the United States, on June 29, 2018. The film received universal critical acclaim, with praise for the performances of Foster and McKenzie, and, after Paddington 2, it is the second-most reviewed film to hold an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

Will, an Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD, lives with his 13-year-old daughter, Tom, in an old growth forest park near Portland, Oregon. They live in isolation, using forest survival skills and only entering the town occasionally for food and supplies. Will makes their money by selling his VA-issued painkillers to other veterans.
After Tom is spotted in the woods by a jogger, she and Will are arrested by park rangers and detained by social services. They are assessed and she is found to be educationally advanced for her age despite never having been to school. They are found a house to live in on a Christmas tree farm in rural Oregon in exchange for Will's work on the farm. Will begrudgingly begins work packaging trees, but is bothered by the helicopters used to move them. Tom connects with a boy who is building his own tiny house, and he introduces her to his 4H club. Social services continue to check on them and require constant form filling.
One morning Will suddenly decides to leave. Tom follows reluctantly. They return to their camp in the park, but find it has been destroyed. Will and Tom try to travel in a railroad boxcar but eventually catch a ride with a trucker who takes them to Washington state and drops them off, as they ask in a remote forested area. Cold and darkness force them to build a temporary forest survival shelter for the night. However, the next day they discover a vacant cabin and move in.
Will leaves to find food but does not return in the evening. The next morning, Tom discovers him unconscious at the bottom of a ravine. She gets help from local quadbikers, who take them to their mobile home community. Tom refuses to let Will be taken to a hospital. Dale, a local woman, calls a friend, who is a former Army medic and fellow PTSD sufferer. He treats Will's leg and lends him his service dog who can help with his nightmares.
Will and Tom are given an empty trailer in the community while Will’s injuries heal. Tom likes their new home and tries to make a rental agreement with Dale who is its owner without telling Will. Eventually Will insists they leave. Tom protests, telling him "the same thing that’s wrong with you isn't wrong with me". They tearfully hug and part ways. Tom returns to the trailer community, and Will returns to the woods. Tom is later seen to be leaving food at a place in the forest for Will to find.

Cast

Filming

took place during the spring of 2017 in Portland, Oregon. Eagle Fern Park in Clackamas County was used for the main forest scenes.

Soundtrack

Dickon Hinchliffe, formerly of Tindersticks, composed the film score, released digitally by Lakeshore Records. This is his second collaboration with Granik, after Winter's Bone
  1. Forest Park
  2. Rough Country
  3. The Runner
  4. Taken
  5. Drive to the Farm
  6. Raid 7. Return to the Forest
  7. Lost
  8. Not That Kind of Trouble
  9. Tiny House
  10. Shelter
  11. The Long Night
  12. Finding Will
  13. Bus Out of Town
  14. We Share a Star
Off-grid musician and former Dream Syndicate and Opal member, Kendra Smith, contributed an original song "Moon Boat", which plays over the end credits.
Oregon Folk musicians Michael Hurley and Marisa Anderson have cameo performances in the film.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2018. Shortly after, Bleecker Street acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. It was released on June 29, 2018.

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 225 reviews, and an average rating of 8.54/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Leave No Trace takes an effectively low-key approach to a potentially sensationalistic story — and further benefits from brilliant work by Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie." After Paddington 2, it is the second-most reviewed film to hold an approval rating of 100% on the site. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 88 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Film critic Mark Kermode named Leave No Trace his favourite film of 2018.
The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw praised the movie as being a deeply intelligent story of love and survival in the wild, and gave it a perfect score of 5/5.

Accolades

Top ten lists

Leave No Trace was listed on numerous critics' top ten lists for 2018, among them: