Leave No Trace explores living on the margins at Thame Cinema

DEBRA Granik’s last feature was the film that launched Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone, back in 2010. Her second film shares the earlier story’s concern with the experience of living on the margins, and the moral choices of those who live outside the codes and values and structures that constiute “civilised” society.

Will is a traumatised and profoundly disillusioned ex-military man, who lives with his teenage daughter, Tom, in a huge national park in Oregon. He has raised her in a manner that explicitly rejects what he sees as the intellectual and moral corruptions of state and society. They live undercover, with only a tent and the rudiments of equipment, reading books and treading lightly on their surroundings, attempting to ‘leave no trace’ on the environment. From time to time, they venture into the city, where Will sells some of his prescription meds for cash with which they get basic supplies.

Will has taught Tom how to remain invisible from the authorities, but one day she is seen by a hiker, and their cover is blown. The two of them are subjected to the ‘caring’ examinations and ministrations of social services bureaucracy, apparently acquiescent to the demands of child protection authories, all the while planning to escape once again. The tests they are subjected to, and the questions that are asked of them, serve only to prove that in so many ways they are not victims to the miseries that plague many regular lives – Tom is safe, well educated, well fed, she is loved. They sleep well and are content and happy. However, Tom finds that for the first time she has to wonder what it might be like to live like a regular child, to have a home and a pet rabbit, or the company of one’s peers. Might there be another way to live?

The two must examine their deeply held values and the way they have chosen to live, what is at stake and what is right. To her infinite credit, Granik manages to treat this story with restraint and a quiet introspection, when another story teller might have been tempted towards histrionics and more explicit jerking of tears. The result is all the more poignant and powerful.

Widely acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, this is one that will stay with you.
View the trailer here. LINK

USA 2018, 108 minutes, PG certificate
Directed by Debra Granik, Starring Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie,
Jeff Kober, Dale Dickey, Isaiah Stone, Dana Millican

LEAVE NO TRACE This Friday, February 8, 8pm
Film tickets are available on the door or online- Click HERE