A father and a daughter test their bond in the affecting Leave No Trace | Movie | The Pacific Northwest Inlander



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  Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster give moving performances in Leave No Trace.

  • Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster give moving representations in Leave No Trace .

In the beginning, Will seems as a good father

Leave No Trace begins with Will (Ben Foster) on what could be an extended camping trip with his 13 year old. Tom 's daughter (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie), sleeping in a tent in the woods, lighting fires with flint and steel, catching rain water for drinking, cooking mushrooms that' s like. they find among the trees. But it soon becomes clear that this is not a fun father-daughter vacation: it's like that that they live, far from civilization, always in fear of being discovered and captured by the police (because they live on the grounds of a public park

The director and co-writer Debra Granik (from Peter Rock's novel My Abandonment based in part on a true story) balances those delicate sympathies throughout Leave No Trace who never judges Will despite his seemingly disastrous decisions for the future of his daughter.

While they hiding in the park, Will and Tom make trips to the nearby town of Portland, Oregon, to shop at the grocery store and Will goes to the Veterans Hospital. A post-traumatic stress disorder, although Granik leaves aside his service experience, and Will not be interested in talking to counselors or taking his prescribed medications that he sells with Tom

Once the authorities inevitably catch up with them, Will and Tom will bounce back from a situation of Fragile life to another, and whenever things seem to settle for them, Will insists that they come back on the run. It is clear that he cares deeply about his daughter, and the film never hints at something inappropriate in their relationship (although some social workers raise these suspicions). But it is also clear that he forced her to shape her entire life according to her needs, relying on her unconditional love to override her desire for stability and her relationships with others.

Foster is a muscular and closed actor, who adapts to the blurred and closed voluptuousness, though Foster's performance makes it as difficult for the public to connect with Will as for the people that he meet. McKenzie, a New Zealand actress making her debut in the United States, is the film's true anchor, giving a moving performance to a young woman forced to grow up too soon, as Jennifer Lawrence did in the movie's Granik 2010 Winter & # 39; s Bone . McKenzie conveys Tom's mixture of love and resentment for his father with a muffled intensity, while Tom's personality and his independent desires emerge during the film

Trace is the first long narrative of Granik since 19459007 Winter's Bone and it's a much quieter, quieter movie, but that does not mean that there's not as much at stake for those characters. Sometimes the pace may seem a little too slow and winding, but it gives more power to the emotional crescendos, especially as the gap between Will and Tom grows

Granik and the director of photography Michael McDonough capture the beauty lush and peaceful isolation of the Pacific. The wilderness of the northwest where Will and Tom take refuge, and the film immerses the public in this society of marginal people. Many of them have been forgotten, while others are hoping to escape, but almost all are open to offering a hand to Will and Tom, whether they ask for it or not . All of the film's relationships, even those that last for one scene, affect quietly, and Granik understands how hard it is to love someone to be able to realize that you have to let them go. ♦

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