MOBILE, BUT RIGHT AT HOME
Debra Granik’s thought-provoking film proves that not all who wander are lost
Ben Foster is a chameleonic actor — he’s played good men, bad men and more than a few madmen — but something in his frame and bearing suggests a military air. Which might be why he keeps returning to soldiering roles: as a U.S. Navy SEAL in Lone Survivor, a 19th-century deserter in Hostiles, or on casualty notification duty in the excellent 2009 film The Messenger.
In Leave No Trace, Debra Granik’s thoughtful, almost documentary tale of deliberate homelessness in America, Foster stars as Will, a veteran with a debilitating case of PTSD. He’s chosen to live in a huge urban park in Portland, Ore., with his 13-year-old daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie).
There’s a calming sense of rhythm and rules in their wilderness lifestyle, like a camping trip that never ends. Father and daughter play hide and seek (actually a training technique to avoid being noticed, since living in the part is illegal) and occasionally venture into town for supplies they can’t forage.
Their idyllic but fragile existence is interrupted when police officers capture them and they are catapulted into a social system that is well-meaning but clearly not a good fit, at least for the father.
Yet even here Granik avoids casting anyone as the villain, or giving anyone over to histrionics. Will’s frustration and Tom’s uncertainties are always expressed in than calm tones.
And Granik, who made a name for herself (and for young star Jennifer Lawrence) with 2010’s Winter’s Bone, exhibits a real sympathy, not just for her central characters but for anyone with whom they interact. Tom makes a friend in the strange social housing/work camp community to which they’ve been sent.
McKenzie is a New Zealand actor mostly unknown in these parts. You’ll be seeing more of her soon, alongside Timothée Chalamet and Robert Pattinson in The King; with Sam Rockwell in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit; and with Russell Crowe in The True History of the Kelly Gang.
For now, you can revel in her simple, understated performance alongside Foster. If there’s a scene that encapsulates her character’s complex mix of filial love and a desire for something more, it’s when she spots a sea horse pendant on a park trail. Will tells her to leave it; if it’s still there on their return journey, she can claim it then.
Tom agrees, but hangs back just long enough to push the pendant into the leaves to prevent it being spotted. In another example of the film’s sense of enduring realism, I noticed McKenzie was still wearing it in Cannes, where the film screened last May. The South of France is a long way from an Oregon park, and just as removed from New Zealand, but she seems to feel at home in all three.