Leave No Trace

Directed by Debra Granik
Starring Ben Foster, Jeff Kober, Dale Dickey, Isaiah Stone, Dana Millican, Thomasin McKenzie

All of us have a choice in life between integration and isolation, and whilst consensus seems to tell us that it is better to be a part of something bigger than just ourselves, experience all too often reminds us why many would sooner choose the lonely forest over the sprawling cityscape. Debra Granik’s searing Leave No Trace sensitively pitches these two ways of living as the lines of conflict – and connection – between father Will (Ben Foster), and his teenage daughter Tom (Thomasin McKenzie).

Having lived off-grid in the Oregonian wilderness for years, Will and Tom’s idyllic existence is shattered by an incident that forces the pair apart and into the modern world, where both are left re-evaluating their path in life. Ben Foster is tremendous as a PTSD-stricken man navigating a maelstrom of emotions, deconstructing traditional conceptions of masculinity with a wrenching performance, whilst a pre-Jojo Rabbit Thomasin McKenzie shines as a young woman whose survivor instinct comes into conflict with a dawning realisation that maybe forest living for so long has been stopping her from seeing the woods through the trees.