Category Archives: Recent Reviews

Three Identical Strangers (2018): Triplet Troubles

This is another movie where your enjoyment will be improved the less you know about the plot. At a basic level, it is the miraculous story of three men who discover that they are identical triplets separated at birth. From then on the film examines their lives post-discovery and the unexpected background of their peculiar situation.

As topics for investigative journalism go, there are few stories out there that are as immediately sensational as someone learning they are a triplet and director Tim Wardle is able to capture the feeling of their discovery. Through overlapping editing where the brothers’ recollections of their first meeting finish each other’s sentences, we feel their experience. In their breathless speech, they communicate the bewildering, almost euphoric moment where the impossible is slowly becoming possible.

The triplets have the immediate, goofy camaraderie of lifelong friends.

The brothers (Eddy, Bobby, and David) prove to be charismatic subjects for the film. There’s a lot of pleasure to be had in noticing their similarities, despite being brought up in different household environments, and their differences, despite being identical triplets. More than anything its their instantaneous connection that is felt. An aunt talks about how they were rolling around with each other on the floor at their first meeting because they were already comfortable with each other. As Bobby says, “I opened the door…and there I was”. It’s heartwarming to see how readily they embrace their newfound siblings and easily integrate into each other’s lives.

After the initial surprise wears off, the next question becomes: how did this happen? None of the parents knew they were adopting a triplet and some claimed they would have gladly adopted all three had they known. This is were the film starts its unexpected turns. The transition to a darker tone happens naturally as the film becomes an exploration of morality and the debate of nature vs. nurture. Comparing the three families, one was more affluent, one was middle-class, and the other was blue-collar, each with distinct parenting styles. The film looks at the possible effects of each household and how they (potentially) changed the personalities of the triplets. Wardle is not interested in taking a definitive stance and instead lets each member of the families express their own thoughts, allowing viewers to formulate their own opinions. As both a retelling of an unbelievable true story and a thought piece, Three Identical Strangers presents an equally thrilling and provocative narrative.

4/5 stars.

First Reformed (2018): Crisis of Faith

After making movies starring Lindsay Lohan and Nicolas Cage, writer-director Paul Schrader (Affliction) has finally made something worthwhile again. Ethan Hawke (Before Midnight) plays Toller, a former military pastor now working at the eponymous small, but historic church after suffering a personal tragedy. His life centers around his work and the film opens with him embarking on a new experiment. He will write in a journal every day for a year, then burn the journal at the end. Toller is quickly established as a man suffering from unresolved emotional issues and his life becomes more complicated when Mary (Amanda Seyfried; Mean Girls), a patron, asks him to speak to her husband who has become distant and unhappy.

Schrader imbues the film’s severe tone into its visuals. Toller’s home is meager at best with minimum, unadorned furniture and no luxuries to speak of. The film is lit primarily by natural sources, presented in a 4:3 frame, and the action is set against an empty New England winter. These formal elements only serve to highlight the austere approach and Toller’s almost ascetic lifestyle.

For a small film with only a 105-minute runtime, Schrader manages to pack in several heavy themes. His topics range from depression to ecological preservation to capitalism in religion and, miraculously, the film never feels jumbled or didactic. Each of these themes is deeply intertwined with the others. They become natural discoveries as Toller descends further into the film’s central emotion: despair.

Hawke perfectly captures the unease of a man questioning the foundations of his beliefs.

You could call Toller’s problems a crisis of faith – as ironic as that may be. The film is filled with similar ironies. Toller counsels Mary husband despite the fact that he too is depressed. It’s the blind leading the blind and rather than alleviate her husband’s troubles, Toller finds himself absorbing his anxieties. He develops a protective relationship with Mary but continues in a vicious cycle of depression as the voiceover readings of his diary entries begin to sound like suicide notes from a tortured soul.

The modest life of Hawke’s character comes into sharp contrast against his boss, Pastor Jeffers, who manages the larger megachurch that owns First Reformed. He dresses sharply, has a gregarious personality, and doesn’t shy away from the financial realities of supporting a large congregation. As he accepts large donations from a chemicals company known for its environmental pollution, Toller becomes increasingly conflicted about his own duties as a man of God.

This is a film about the effects of living in a cold, unjust world. One with no answers and complicated morals. Toller’s attempt at a near-monastic way of life offers him no reprieve. His attempts to remain pure and true to what he believes is the will of God only leave him broken while those willing to compromise succeed. Schrader’s goal is not to depress or condemn, but rather to illuminate the hypocrisies we live in and the compromises we make to survive. In the film’s too-abrupt conclusion, he offers a possible coping method in this nihilistic world, yet even this is not a cure. First Reformed explores the misery that comes with being oversensitized to the world’s problems and the depths of dejection it may cause.

4/5 stars.

A Quiet Place (2018): Silent Anxiety

A dialogue-free movie is not what we think of for a wide release from a major studio, but Paramount has again (after mother! and Annihilation) released a surprisingly original film with indie or arthouse roots. Directed by John Krasinski (The Office) and written by him and indie horror filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, A Quiet Place centers on a family living on a farm months after a catastrophe has happened. Monsters now roam the earth. They have hypersensitive hearing and come after any creature that makes a sound. This requires the father (Krasinski) and mother (Emily Blunt; Edge of Tomorrow) to raise their family in complete silence. The characters communicate in sign language because the slightest noise could bring an untimely end.

Sound editing and sound mixing are never the most anticipated awards at the Oscars, but A Quiet Place is easily this year’s frontrunner. The sound designers crafted nuance within the film’s limited noises. Rather than alternating between quiet and loud to create jump scares, as most horror movies do, the film showcases the gradations of silence. The sound designers understood the differences between complete silence, the muffled reverberations heard by the deaf daughter, and the gentle room tone heard by the characters as they carefully go about their routines. These act as audio settings for the film that clue the viewer into both the character we are focusing on and the particular dangers they face..

Krasinski is the survivalist father trying to protect his family in perilous times.

This is a script that wastes no time on exposition. No background information about the monsters is given. We don’t know where they came from, how they got there, or even what to call them and the film is no less for it. The key points are made immediately: they hear sounds and if they hear yours, it’s all over. The film’s focus is on the brief set of encounters the family has with the monsters. Each of these is cleverly foreshadowed. We see what objects will be used, but not how and what will be an issue, but not when. Instead of being surprised to learn that a character has a new obstacle in their path, we are trapped in fear, knowing what adversity awaits them but unable to do anything about it.

The film’s premise is ripe with tension. When any noise can spell disaster, every step is potentially deadly and the writers continually introduce creative ways to play with noise. These setups never feel contrived because the script links them to character traits. The daughter is deaf so she doesn’t realize when something is making noise which puts her in several precarious spots. The wife is pregnant which we know will not end in a silent birth. Krasinksi, whose previous films have been less than stellar, directs these scenes with slow, smooth tracking shots that match the cast’s own cautious movements. Each situation is replete with danger and there is a palpable sense of relief when death is narrowly avoided. Yet, these moments are only brief reprieves. Death is always one clumsy gesture away. With a script fraught with inventive set pieces and direction that creates unyielding suspense, A Quiet Place is the rare horror film that can sustain an inescapable anxiety and perpetual unease.

4/5 stars.

Tomb Raider (2018): An Agreeable Expedition

Being both a reboot and a video game adaptation doesn’t usually raise expectations for a movie. The first Tomb Raider films starred Angelina Jolie over a decade ago and performed well as far as video game movies go, but the newest iteration is an adaptation of the most recent video games. In 2013, the Tomb Raider games relaunched with a new Lara Croft, younger and unobjectified, and this film follows that story. Lara (Alicia Vikander; The Light Between Oceans) is living on her own as a bike courier in London after the disappearance of her father seven years earlier. When asked to meet with her lawyer regarding her family’s large estates, she discovers a message from her father about the true nature of his absence. He left for a remote island where he believed an ancient secret was buried. Determined to find him, Lara leaves England and faces the island’s natural dangers along with a competing organization led by Walter Goggins (The Hateful Eight).

With a smaller frame than Jolie, Vikander was not an obvious choice to play Lara. She has spent months training for the role and while her stature is still small, she has bulked up to the point that her fighting and, most importantly, her climbing is believable. Her Lara is an imperfect adventurer, stumbling occasionally and taking more than her fair share of hits, but she still preserves. Her determination, both as an actress or as the character, is what we see onscreen and it makes her a charismatic presence.

Vikander has to work with a script that doesn’t always portray Lara in the best light. In its attempts to show her youth and inexperience, the writing can make her seem petulant and, in some cases, downright dumb. She lives independent of her family’s wealth but is in debt and still refuses to sign the necessary paperwork to have the estate transfer to her, leaving the fate of their assets in question. Establishing Lara as a self-made adult is important but choosing independence to the point that it jeopardizes her family’s entire wealth is a ridiculous decision that undermines the sympathy the film is trying to elicit.

Vikander proves herself to be a tough, capable Lara.

The supporting cast is mostly capable, but Goggins as the villain is not. His acting career has featured many eccentric roles, but here he pulls back too far. His performance is more subdued than subtle and he often comes off as disinterested. He delivers threats at gunpoint with little credible danger and seems to space out in the middle of a line as if his thoughts were drifting elsewhere during production.

A weak human villain leaves the environment to become the real antagonist. The film pulls from several specific set pieces from the video game and renders them surprisingly well. The iconic river and waterfall scene is shown with impressive scale. The sheer number of precarious situations Lara finds herself in can stretch belief, but, as an action movie, director Roar Uthaug (The Wave) keeps the death defying stunts relatively grounded. The pain that Lara suffers allows each narrow escape to feel earned, not given.

The events that propel the action are fairly standard, but well executed. The missing father trope has been repeated time and time again and when Lara finally reaches the titular tomb, it sticks closely to the elaborate traps and crumbling architecture of any Indiana Jones movie. Uthaug’s main accomplishments have been creating action scenes that have scale and weight and moving the story along at a brisk pace. The film doesn’t break any molds, but the set pieces and Vikander’s committed performance make Tomb Raider an agreeable expedition.

3/5 stars.

Annihilation (2018): Slow, High-concept Sci-fi

Writer-director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) has carved out a niche for himself. With his newest film, he reconfirms his interest in smart science fiction. Making drastic changes to the best-selling novel by Jeff VanderMeer, the film follows Lena (Natalie Portman; Black Swan), a biologist and military veteran, who is taken to a government facility hiding a secret. A crashed meteorite has created a transformation known as Area X, or as the Shimmer for its glowing borders, and no one has ever returned from inside. She, along with four other women, are assigned to enter the uncharted zone and find its source before Area X expands to the rest of the country.

Garland strikes a unique balance between heady sci-fi and monster movie. Like a Tarkovsky film, the pacing is generally slow. In most cases, unnecessarily slow. There are repeated flashbacks that drag on without adding depth to Lena’s backstory, but there is also a blend of horror and action. The women of expedition team wield assault rifles and know how to use them with the script providing ample opportunities to do so. As they explore the wilderness, Garland follows the trappings of horror with near-death encounters and increasing paranoia that create sustained tension. Someone reports that there are two main theories why teams never return: something beyond the Shimmer kills them or they go crazy and kill themselves. Garland never provides an answer with each subsequent event seemingly flipping the odds in the other direction and thereby leaving the audience in suspense.

The action and horror elements help break up the slow pacing.

There is constant fear of the unknown within Area X, but also an unexpected beauty. Garland makes the environment lethal with dangerous, malformed creatures lurking around every corner. His methods are effective because the setting isn’t entirely alien. The flora and fauna are perversions of a natural setting and everything glows with a pallid, ethereal luminescence. Things feel close enough to normal that the differences become stark and disturbing. Animals resemble their traditional forms but are distorted in size, shape, or features. Flowers and fungi-like growths bloom throughout the landscape, but their initial beauty is complicated. The unnaturally colorful plants undulate as if they are feeding off the wildlife, almost carnivorously, and add to the mistrust surrounding every new encounter.

In VanderMeer’s original book, the title referred to a specific event, but Garland has a much higher concept in mind. In a revealing conversation, a character corrects Lena about the differences between self-destruction and suicide and exposes the heart of the film. Whether it’s the wildlife of Area X, cancer, or relationships, Garland is interested in the transformative, damaging, and regenerative consequences of self-destructive actions, but he isn’t explicit with his conclusions. The film’s ending is abstract and ambiguous to the point that it will frustrate viewers who tolerated the film’s slow rhythm in hopes of an explanation. The sequence itself is well executed and creates a genuine sense of wonder, but it will be divisive. Films don’t need clear or easy interpretations, they’re often better in ambiguity, but Annihilation leaves ideas open for discussion without providing enough resolution to make the long journey there worthwhile. Garland renders a deadly, corrupted environment with noble, high concept goals, but the needlessly slow pacing requires more from the narrative than it can provide.

3/5 stars.

The Party (2018): High-class Soap Opera

In honor of her newfound appointment as the Minister of Health, Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas; Only God Forgives), celebrates by hosting a party. She invites her closest friends including Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, and Cillian Murphy, along with her husband played by Timothy Spall. What starts off as an innocent night of dinner and drinks erupts into chaos as we learn more about the secrets beneath their posh appearance and the party becomes a night to remember.

The black and white cinematography is adequate, but nothing more. Too often movies without color are automatically praised for their visuals when in reality they are merely passable. Small-scale independent movies like The Party tend to be shot in black and white for practical reasons rather than artistic ones. The choice to remove color hides the flaws of cheap lighting and enables quicker setups which was likely a major factor in director Sally Potter’s decision. The look of the film doesn’t compare to great black and white cinematography seen in movies like The Third Man, but it may not need to. The aesthetic hides the film’s budget limitations and adds to its deliberately cultured appearance that will no doubt ingratiate it to its intended audience.

Ganz’s free spirit is a great contrast to the rest of the cast.

The dialogue and setup initially feel pretentious. The characters are professors, politicians, and other forms of self-professed intellectuals and the dialogue never lets you forget it. Potter’s script often feels overwritten with needlessly verbose language. The word choice and the pompous way lines are delivered can be highfalutin and grating when the characters are first introduced. Clarkson’s constant eyerolling and dismissive tone are particularly irritating as she judges others under her breath. This snobbish behavior creates a distancing effect that prevents the film from building traction early on. Eventually, the characters become relatable as the plot twists are introduced, but the pompous air makes the first half of this short 77-minute movie feel much longer than desired.

Potter’s film is essentially a chamber play. The story is confined to a few rooms in one setting and the action is dialogue-based which may have been better suited to the stage. The theatrics of the performances would have felt at home and the small scale would be more appropriate. Unlike last year’s Beatriz at Dinner, which had a similar setup, it doesn’t take advantage of its medium. On the big screen, the film struggles through its first half until the melodrama appears. As juicy details are revealed and the characters are forced out of their ivory towers, the film becomes immensely more interesting. Seeing the supposedly refined exteriors shatter when faced with decidedly low-class problems is a welcome, almost cathartic change. Each new piece of information increases the hysteria – and the humor – while Ganz’s new age healer interjects with his own unwanted hippy philosophies to the chagrin of the other partygoers trying to cope with their immediate issues. Potter shows a knack for creating social situations that quickly spiral out of control, it’s just a shame that it takes her so long to get there.

3/5 stars.

Early Man (2018): Timeless Humor

Directing his first film in over a decade, Nick Park (Wallace & Gromit) and the wonderful team at Aardman Animations (Chicken Run) have created another hilarious stop-motion romp. Set in the Stone Age, the story follows Dug (Eddie Redmayne; The Theory of Everything) and his fellow cavemen who are forced out of their valley by a Bronze Age nobleman named Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston; Thor). Desperate to get his homeland back, Dug bets Nooth that his tribe can beat Nooth’s all-star soccer team. If the cavemen win, they can return to their valley, but if they lose they will be forced to spend their lives working in Nooth’s bronze mines.

A cast of prominent British actors has the time of their lives doing the voicework. Redmayne as Dug is an eternal optimist whose springy voice implies he always has another idea up his sleeves if things don’t work out. His resilience is as charming as his naivete, but the real standout has to be Hiddleston. Lord Nooth gives him the chance to be the villain Loki (his character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) never could be. He is deliciously evil, savoring every injustice he can create and every piece of bronze he can swindle. Yet, his ludicrous scheming is kept light by his blatant incompetence and his fear of how the Queen will react to his actions. He is the epitome of the likable, but bumbling villain, perfect for an audience to laugh at, but not with. Topping off the performances is a variety of vaguely European accents. Ricocheting between western European countries, the cast’s adopted speech only heightens the farcical plot and adds to the film’s absurd tone.

Lord Nooth is probably Hiddleston’s finest role yet.

Early Man is filled to the brim with inventive humor. Unlike most animated films, Park doesn’t rely on desperate fart jokes to get a laugh out of his audience. He uses the Stone Age setting to create ridiculous situations with the peak being a gargantuan, man-eating mallard duck and then mines the culture clash of the cavemen entering the Bronze age. There are setups with characters using ancient technology for modern communication, particularly a running gag involving a messenger bird, that are priceless. As the soccer match ramps up there is also a surprising amount of sports related humor. Subtle digs at prominent real-world teams and a caricature of sports commentators are welcome additions that even non-soccer fans will enjoy. Aardman’s humor goes beyond single jokes. Each scene is packed with unexpected sight gags that make the film worth a second viewing. It has the rare combination of both quality and quantity of jokes that will keep audiences of all ages laughing.

The simple plot may be a slight disappointment to some. While Park takes advantage of the humor that the Stone Age brings, the film quickly and unexpectedly turns into a sports movie with an unusual backdrop. The beats leading up to the soccer match follow the expected tropes including a training montage, a struggle to perform, and a new member that motivates the team. It’s impossible to not wonder what zany situations the cavemen could have faced if Park had leaned further into the prehistoric setting (more man-eating mallards would have been appreciated), but there is plenty to love about the story that is present. Despite its familiarity, it’s the unique spin Park adds that prevents it from becoming cliché. Under his direction, and with the work of his stellar animation team, Early Man is a consistently hilarious, beautifully crafted, and uniquely Aardman take on the sports movie.

4/5 stars.

Becks (2018): Great Music, Awkward Filmmaking

Filling the void left until John Carney makes another movie, directors Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell have created an indie music filled film that leans heavily into its romantic elements. After a rough breakup with her girlfriend and musical partner, Becks (Lena Hall) returns home to St. Louis (referred to as “the Lou”) to live with her mom. She reunites with her best friend from high school and starts playing at his bar and giving guitar lessons to earn some cash on the side. Her first student Elyse (Mena Suvari; American Beauty) becomes a closer-than-expected companion as Lena deals with the fallout from her remaining feelings about her ex and the delicate relationship she has with her deeply religious mother.

The success of the film relies on two elements: its music and the lead actress. Fortunately, these tend to be its strongest aspects. The music consists of soft, acoustic tunes soulfully sung by Hall. Hall is Tony Award winner and seasoned performer. Her voice is beautiful and each performance makes the most of the introspective lyrics. The singing is heartfelt and tinged with pain, but still inviting.

Hall as the lead makes Becks an endearing character. She may fall into several tropes about indie musicians and lesbians, but her energy and abrasiveness are incredibly likable. She drinks heavily and curses frequently, even as her mother protests, but there is a refreshing honesty to her behavior. While others in her town are concerned with propriety and appearances, her brazen language cuts through any artifice.

Becks’ barside performances are the highlight of the film.

The directors have done a great job of handling her orientation. This isn’t a persecution narrative, but she still has to deal with the judgement of people around her, including her mom. Becks points out that she needs to get back to New York City and out of the small-town life, but she handles herself well when faced with anything from unwanted setups at a barbeque to comments like “You’re the first one we’ve really ever hung out with”. She takes these things in stride as the film exposes these subtle interactions without letting them sidetrack the focus of the story.

Despite its strengths, the film’s writing and direction can undercut its impact. The film is, like its lead character, is messy. The great music and performance from Hall and intertwined with awkward filmmaking. Several conversations with the supporting cast are often inelegant with inconsistent pacing in the dialogue. It’s as if the actors are speaking at the speed of separate metronomes and that prevents exchanges from having a natural flow. This is especially true of the film’s comedic moments. The humor is intended to come from socially awkward situations and, on paper, they may have worked, but the film has more misses than hits. Hall’s sly comments are delivered too soon or too late to be effective and the timing issues can make the overall film feel amateurish. These problems don’t overwhelm the film’s strengths, but they do prevent it from earning a strong recommendation. Becks, like a talented aspiring musician, has plenty to like, but lacks the polish needed to become a larger success.

3/5 stars.

Holiday (Sundance 2018): Vacation’s All I Ever Wanted

A young woman dating a rich gangster, what could go wrong? First time director Isabella Eklöf brings us to the Turkish Rivera where Sascha (Victoria Carmen Sonne), her older boyfriend Michael (Lai Yde), and some of his associates spend their vacation. While Michael is attending to the criminal business that has afforded them their luxurious accommodations, Sascha befriends Thomas (Thijs Römer), a man sailing the Mediterranean by himself. Michael is quickly shown to be violent, abusive, and controlling. He has an explicit code of trust and mercilessly punishes those that breach it. When Sascha needs a break from Michael, she calls Thomas and begins courting him without ever revealing her relationship. This causes major problems when Michael spots her going to visit Thomas.

Eklöf favors clear, bold staging. Most of the film is composed of wide shots in deep focus with each moving character, whether main, supporting, or background, shown in crisp detail. She presents these scenes as if witnessing one story within a larger world. Sascha may be the protagonist, but we are unable to forget that she is just one among the many moving parts of Michael’s gang. Eklöf’s cinematography pulls heavily from the works of similarly unflinching director Ulrich Seidl (Paradise Trilogy). Like Seidl, she refuses to turn away from any of the film’s explicit violence. Her camera remains fixed, forcing the audience to witness whatever may be on screen and realize that it is not happening in isolation, that the world is still going on around it even as these vile acts occur.

Eklöf’s wide framing and restrained editing create an immersive, inescapable world.

There is a famous line from a Jean-Luc Godard movie that goes “Every cut is a lie” and Eklöf operates from the same school of thinking. She shoots conversations with both characters in frame to remove the need for crosscutting and creates moments of uneasy voyeurism. Suddenly, the film is no longer a directed experience. It is up to the audience to decide where to focus their gaze and, willingly or not, partake in the story. To put the effect in context, when I left the theater I saw a TV screen with a news channel playing and asked myself “Why isn’t this in Danish?”. Eklöf’s style forces viewers to merge into the world of the characters and the deliberate editing prevents us from clashing with the artifice of cinema.

As explicit as the actions on screen may be, Holiday’s true controversy from will come from its murky morality. When there are acts of abuse in film, the characters are immediately divided into victims (good) and abusers (bad), but Eklöf doesn’t conform to this standard. While Sascha remains a victim, her abuse propagates through her in unexpected ways and there is more to her than the seemingly childish behavior she initially displays. She is not the cowering captive we would presume and her abrupt actions lead us to question, even retract, the sympathy she has earned, despite her suffering. This is the rarely explored and deeply uncomfortable area Eklöf is interested in. She has created Holiday to show the corrupting nature of violence and the unwanted complications it brings to our simple conceptions of morality.

4/5 stars.

Leave No Trace (Sundance 2018): Growing Beyond Your Parents

Somewhere in the middle of the woods, a father and his daughter live alone in what seems to be a permanent camp. It is soon revealed that Will (Ben Foster; Hell or High Water) and Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) are actually living in a national park, far off the beaten path to avoid contact with patrons. They are mostly self-sufficient, taking only infrequent trips to the nearby city for basic tools when necessary, until Tom is spotted by a runner. The authorities later arrive to take them away and they are placed into state-sponsored housing and assistance programs. For the first time in her life, Tom is exposed to society and the possibilities it brings.

The pacific northwest setting envelops each scene. The trees tower over the cast with the tops far out of frame. They create a harsh beauty to Will and Tom’s living arrangements. The film doesn’t shy away from the rain either. The characters are palpably soaked and their camp feels worn with use.

As Will and Tom are taken in by government agencies, director Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) makes a small statement on their effectiveness. While their accommodations are good and the people assisting them care for their well-being, the mandated processes are shown to be ineffectual. Will has to take a comically long survey (400+ questions) that he is not mentally prepared for and Tom is immediately separated from him, her only companion. It may not be the focus of the film, but this slight commentary is welcome.

Tom’s growth to independence is well portrayed by McKenzie.

So often films examine parents dealing with difficult children, but here Granik is interested in the reverse scenario. As Will pulls them out of their generous state sponsored housing into more precarious situations, his actions raise doubts in his previously obedient daughter. Tom starts to realize that there is something beyond a desire to live outdoors going on with her dad. He has some sort of compulsion to get away from society and it soon revealed that Will is a veteran, likely suffering from PTSD. This is incredibly complex subject matter, but Granik is able to weave through it as Tom gains a better understanding of what she needs versus what her father needs.

Leave No Trace is a film about quiet, gradual realizations. Tom’s growth into an adult is a steady change. McKenzie’s performance is subtle and understated as she takes note of each red flag. Her arguments with her father are compassionate, honest pleadings rather than the shouts of an angsty teen and the composure she displays is impressive, as are her interactions with her father. Foster and McKenzie exhibit the unspoken understanding that comes with close relationships and their affection for each other is obvious. Typically, when there is a story of a man alone with his daughter in isolation there are heinous actions involved, but not here. In the face of Will’s PTSD driven actions, they are still a loving family. As Tom matures and must reevaluate her relationship with her traumatized father, hard, adult lessons are learned. Granik succeeds by making Tom’s journey to understanding her father gentle and nuanced.

4/5 stars.