Debra Granik certainly has a knack for creating breakout female stars from her films, with the best possible 2 for 2 in some time. Her first film’s breakout was Vera Farmiga, who soon after got cast in The Departed and has led to a series of fantastic horror material including the best horror franchise going today. Her 2nd film, Winter’s Bone, launched then little known Kentucky actress Jennifer Lawrence into a stellar YA and Marvel franchise almost at the same time. Certainly that’s a positive sign for young Thomasin McKenzie. Or, possibly, overly high expectations. I will say, based on her performance in Leave No Trace, there’s a strong chance Granik has gone 3 for 3.
In a large public wilderness park in Oregon, Will (Ben Foster) and his daughter Tom (McKenzie) live together: partially off the land, partially via supermarket. Will gets the money selling his prescription drugs, as he is a war veteran. Their lives get upended when Tom is seen in the woods, and the police come in and extract both of them. Social services informs the family that they have to move on and actually live in a house. The family moves into a modest rural setting that would seem ideal. Tom is open to this new change of scenery and what opportunities lie within, but Will is more hesitant, seeing this house as a shackle he needs to shed.
Leave No Trace is a coming of age story where nothing bad or horrific happens to come of age, just the passage of time and scenery. It’s clear that the capture and arrest, isolating Will from Tom, accelerates Tom’s development. She finally starts meeting people outside of her father, and realizes that maybe the horrors he has endured are not universal, but in fact, his own demons. Tom takes great pleasure learning and connecting with other kids her age or adults. Over time, slowly, Tom starts to question why her father gets restless almost immediately and wants to preemptively leave what would seem to be a great situation. Granik’s screenplay shows us her resistance either wordlessly or with a throwaway line or some small seeming gesture, like putting rent down right away to give monetary incentive to stay for Will. There’s a naturalism to Leave No Trace that despite the extreme situation gives a certain ubiquity to Tom’s arguments with her dad, like any teenager in her scenario.
I must say it again. Thomasin McKenzie is following in the footsteps of Jennifer Lawrence and Vera Farmiga. And she COMPLETELY holder her own. McKenzie has this very mournful but determined face, which she mixes with quiet, soft dialogue. At any one point in time, this combination McKenzie uses allows her to come at scenes with multiple emotions at once, so you can never quite pin down exactly how she’s feeling at any one point, even sometimes contradicting her facial expression with her verbal ones. Despite Will having the more traumatic emotional experiences, it is Tom we are instantly pulling for because of how welcoming and engaging McKenzie is. Across from her in what is essentially a two person play is Ben Foster. Foster isn’t playing a hot head here, smartly downplaying and internalizing Will’s issues so we never really know how much he’s hurting, which plays nicely off of McKenzie. The various combinations of character actors and novices that fill out the screenplay also help fill out and execute Granik’s vision for her story.
Years from now, Leave No Trace will probably be remembered as the Thomasin McKenzie movie, much like Winter’s Bone is Jennifer Lawrence’s Hunger Games audition tape. The girl is so good in this movie, that I’m already dreading the YA adaptation she’s considering signing onto. Maybe we could have worlds collide and get McKenzie alongside Jennifer Lawrence in an X-Men movie. Set in the woods. Directed by Debra Granik. The villain is a tormented shitty father. The story practically writes itself…