Leave No Trace 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 it is the most reviewed film to hold an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Plot
Will, a veteran suffering from PTSD, lives with his teenage daughter, Tom, in the old growthForest Park near Portland, Oregon. They live in isolation, using forest survival skills and entering the town only occasionally for food and supplies. Will makes their money by selling his VA-issuedbenzodiazepines to another homeless veteran.
After Tom is spotted in the woods by a jogger, they are arrested by park rangers and detained by social services. They are assessed and Tom is found to be educationally advanced for her age despite not attending 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 grudgingly begins work packaging trees, but is bothered by the helicopters used to move them. Tom meets a local boy who is building his own tiny house, and he introduces her to the local 4-H youth 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, in a remote forest area. Cold and darkness force them to build a temporary forest survival shelter for the night. The next day they discover a vacant cabin and move in. Will leaves to find food but does not return. The next morning, Tom discovers him unconscious at the bottom of a ravine with a seriously injured foot. 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 to treat Will's injury.
Will and Tom are given an empty trailer in the community while Will's injuries heal. The medic also suffers from PTSD and lends his service dog to help Will with his nightmares. A local teaches Tom about the beehives. Tom likes their new home and tries to make a rental agreement with Dale, the trailer's 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". After leaving the RV community, Tom stops and says to Will, "I know you would stay if you could". They tearfully hug and part ways. Tom returns to the trailer community, and Will returns to the woods. Later, Tom hangs a food package in the forest for Will to find.
Cast
Ben Foster as Will, a military veteran suffering from PTSD
Dale Dickey as Dale, the owner of the trailer park
Dana Millican as Jean Bauer, Tom's social worker
Michael Prosser as James, Will's social worker
Derek John Drescher as Larry, a man with whom Will exchanges medications for money
Isaiah Stone as Isaiah, a person whom Tom befriends
Production
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The film was directed by Debra Granik and written by Granik and Anne Rosellini, based on the 2009 novel My Abandonment by Peter Rock.[3] The novel is based on a true story.[4]
Off-grid musician and former Dream Syndicate and Opal member Kendra Smith contributed the original song "Moon Boat" (her first solo recording since 1996), which plays over the end credits.[9][10]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on 252 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10. 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."[16] It is the most reviewed film to hold an approval rating of 100% on the site.[17][18] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 88 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[19]
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote: "In its best moments, Leave No Trace invites you to simply be with its characters, to see and experience the world as they do. Empathy, the movie reminds you, is something that is too little asked of you either in life or in art. Both Mr. Foster’s and Ms. Harcourt McKenzie’s sensitive, tightly checked performances are critical in this regard."[20]Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it "Fiercely involving in a way we're not used to, made with sensitivity and honesty by director/co-writer Debra Granik, it tells its emotional story of a father and daughter living dangerously off the grid in a way that is unnerving and uncompromising yet completely satisfying."[21]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 out of 5.[22]Mark Kermode named Leave No Trace his favourite film of 2018.[23]
Peter Debruge of Variety gave the film a mixed review: "There's a listless, almost meandering nature to the story. The film's conflict is clear – this is no way to raise a child, and allowed to continue in this fashion, Will risks both his life and Tom's – and yet there’s no sense of where the script is headed, and no urgency to its resolution."[24]
Accolades
Top ten lists
Leave No Trace was listed on numerous critics' top ten lists for 2018, among them:[25]
