Leave No Trace Dvd

Leave No Trace is a 2018 American drama film directed by Debra Granik and written by Granik and Anne Rosellini, based on the 2009 novel My Abandonment by Peter Rock. The plot follows a military veteran father with posttraumatic stress disorder (Ben Foster) who lives in the forest with his young daughter (Thomasin McKenzie). The novel is based on a true story. It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was theatrically released by Bleecker Street in the United States, on June 29, 2018. The film received universal critical acclaim, with praise for the performances of Foster and McKenzie, and, after Paddington 2, it is the second-most reviewed film to hold an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

Will, an Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD, lives with his 13-year-old daughter, Tom, in an old growth forest park near Portland, Oregon. They live in isolation, using forest survival skills and only entering the town occasionally for food and supplies. Will makes their money by selling his VA-issued painkillers to other veterans.

After Tom is spotted in the woods by a jogger, she and Will are arrested by park rangers and detained by social services. They are assessed and she is found to be educationally advanced for her age despite never having been to school. They are found a house to live in on a Christmas tree farm in rural Oregon in exchange for Will’s work on the farm. Will begrudgingly begins work packaging trees, but is bothered by the helicopters used to move them. Tom connects with a boy who is building his own tiny house, and he introduces her to his 4H club. Social services continue to check on them and require constant form filling.

One morning Will suddenly decides to leave. Tom follows reluctantly. They return to their camp in the park, but find it has been destroyed. Will and Tom try to travel in a railroad boxcar but eventually catch a ride with a trucker who takes them to Washington state and drops them off, as they ask, in a remote forest area. Cold and darkness force them to build a temporary forest survival shelter for the night. However, the next day they discover a vacant cabin and move in.

Will leaves to find food but does not return in the evening. The next morning, Tom discovers him unconscious at the bottom of a ravine. She gets help from local quadbikers, who take them to their mobile home community. Tom refuses to let Will be taken to a hospital. Dale, a local woman, calls a friend, who is a former Army medic and fellow PTSD sufferer. He treats Will’s leg, and lends him his service dog to help with his nightmares.

Will and Tom are given an empty trailer in the community while Will’s injuries heal. Tom likes their new home and tries to make a rental agreement with Dale, the trailer’s owner, without telling Will. Eventually Will insists they leave. Tom protests, telling him “the same thing that’s wrong with you isn’t wrong with me”. They tearfully hug and part ways. Tom returns to the trailer community, and Will returns to the woods. Tom is later seen leaving food at a place in the forest for Will to find.

Cast

Ben Foster as Will, Tom’s father
Thomasin McKenzie as Tom, Will’s daughter
Jeff Kober as Mr. Walters, a tree farm owner
Dale Dickey as Dale, the owner of the trailer park
Dana Millican as Jean Bauer, Tom’s social worker
Michael Prosser as James, Will’s social worker
Derek John Drescher as Larry, a man with whom Will exchanges medications for money
Isaiah Stone as Isaiah, a person whom Tom befriends