Leave No Trace (2018)

LEAVE NO TRACE  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Debra Granik
    Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie, Dana Millican,
    Jeffery Rifflard, Jeff Kober, Michael Prosser
Somewhere outside Portland, Oregon, two people, a traumatized Army vet and his teenaged daughter, are living in a forest, off the grid. They drink rain water, forage for food, sleep in a tent and hoard their dwindling supply of propane. Their life is far from idyllic, but it works for them. Eventually they're busted and come under the protection of social services, and that's when things start to change. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie play the two people, and one of the more striking features of Debra Granik's script is how little they say to each other. It's almost as if they can read each other's thoughts. Granik, who made "Winter's Bone", has an obvious affinity for resilient young women in hardscrabble environments, and McKenzie is every bit as compelling as Jennifer Lawrence was in the previous film. Foster has never been better, playing a decent guy who's damaged in a way he knows he can never fix or escape. His love for his daughter is transparent, unequivocal and agonizing. You feel for these people. You want them to be together and safe. At the same time, you  can sense, as they do, that their situation can't last. "I don't have the same problem you have," she says at the end, and they both know it's true. In an imperfect world, you do the best you can. You pick each other up. You help each other out. But everybody, sooner or later, has to let go.