Sundance delight for Wellington actress
She’s wowed international movie critics, but, just as importantly, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie has made her parents proud.
Film-makers Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie were in the 1100 strong audience for the world premiere of the young Kiwi actress’ Leave No Trace at the Sundance International Film Festival on Sunday evening (New Zealand time).
The 17-year-old former Shortland Street star plays the teenage Tom in the independent drama, which is based on Peter Rock’s 2009 novel My Abandonment and directed by Debra Granik, who helped launch Jennifer Lawrence’s career with Winter’s Bone eight years ago.
Speaking to Stuff from the festival in Utah, a delighted Stuart McKenzie said the film received a ‘‘fantastic reception’’. ‘‘It is quietly devastating and Thomasin is luminous. We’re really proud.’’
Harcourt agreed, adding that she found the movie ‘‘very beautiful and moving’’. ‘‘The magic in the film has to be between Thomasin and Ben Foster [who plays her father] and, my goodness, they’ve really pulled it off. It was amazing in the theatre. You could have heard a pin drop. It was pretty special.’’
It’s an assessment some of America’s leading movie critics agree with. Writing for Variety magazine, Peter Debruge compared the story about a renegade father (Ben Foster) who insists on raising his daughter on his own terms to both Bone and Viggo Mortensen-starrer Captain Fantastic, before describing it as a chance for Harcourt McKenzie to shine. ‘‘This unconventional family portrait shares many qualities with the 2010 film [Winter’s Bone], including profound empathy for backwoods characters and the discovery of yet another young talent.’’
That was a sentiment echoed by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Jon Frosch. Summing up the film as an ‘‘absorbing, delicately directed and acted father-daughter drama’’, he praised Harcourt McKenzie for her steadiness and poise.
‘‘The young actress has a sweet, girlish voice that belies Tom’s steely determination, as well as an inquisitiveness that seems to blossom before your eyes.’’
Meanwhile, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich, in awarding the film a B-Grade, singled out Harcourt McKenzie as one to watch. ‘‘McKenzie is a brilliant find, her mousy voice hiding an enormous strength, like a thin tarp stretched across a bottomless pit.’’
Already picked as one of the five breakout stars by The Hollywood Reporter before the annual Sundance Film Festival began last week, Harcourt McKenzie also received an impressive notice from website The Wrap.com. Predicting that she would likely be the subject of ‘‘breathless festival profiles this week, as journalists wonder whether she’s the next Jennifer Lawrence’’, they wrote that ‘‘the New Zealand-born teen turns in a performance that’s nuanced and lovely, and stands confidently on its own’’.
Harcourt said they had spent most of the day after the premiere traipsing through the show from media appointment to media appointment, such was the interest in ‘‘Thomasin and her performance’’.
‘‘Stuart and I and our youngest daughter Davida have been part of the entourage here, along with all the managers, agents, publicists and producers. It’s been pretty interesting.’’
They are all next headed to Los Angeles to, as McKenzie puts it, ‘‘talk to people around the traps’’. McKenzie Harcourt already has another film lined up to shoot in the middle of the year. She’s scheduled to appear alongside the likes of Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult and Essie Davis in Justin Kerzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang.
No NZ screening date has been confirmed for Leave No Trace, although it has been picked up by Sony Pictures Worldwide.