The tiniest of indie films, “Leave No Trace” barely was released into theaters. I’m agnostic on the big/little movie split -- I’ve seen just as many low-budget films that were honkers as blockbusters. But this is one of those cases where I make an outright pitch for people to catch something on video that got past them at the cinema.
Ben Foster, one of the finest actors working in film today, plays Will, the father of Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), a girl in her early teen years. He doesn’t seem to have anything important in his life other than being a parent. He and Tom live in the dense woods outside Portland, Ore., existing somewhere in the netherworld between camping and homelessness.
This film is directed by Debra Granik, who made the excellent “Winter’s Bone” a few years back and co-wrote the screenplay with Anne Rosellini based on a book by Peter Rock. It’s a very still, quiet, observant film. There isn’t a whole lot of plot or dialogue. The movie simply observes its characters and presents them as authentic.
We’re never explicitly told what sent Will and Tom into hiding -- and that is the best word for what they’re doing. Breadcrumbs of hints are dropped suggesting perhaps he is an ex-soldier with PTSD. He receives medication from time to time that he turns around and sells to homeless veterans.
Without giving anything away, events transpire to draw the pair out of their secluded world and into a larger community. This is treated by Tom as an opportunity to grow and change, and by Will as a danger that will result in the loss of the only thing he truly treasures: his relationship with his daughter.
“Leave No Trace” has a quiet power. It’s a look at a very unique bond between two people that is threatened by their introduction into regular society.
Bonus features are decent. There are deleted scenes, behind the scenes footage, a photo gallery of shooting locations and a making-of documentary.
“The same thing that’s wrong with you isn’t wrong with me.” --Tom
“Winter’s Bone” made a star out of Jennifer Lawrence eight years ago, but didn’t do much for its writer/director, Debra Granik. Hollywood still has more of a place for women in front of the camera than behind. After a couple of documentary projects, Granik is back with another fine dramatic feature set in the lonesome backwoods populated by America’s castoffs.
“Leave No Trace” stars Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie as Will and Tom, father and daughter living in complete isolation in a thick forest. At first we think they might be camping, and Will is passing along his skills as a consummate outdoorsman. They pick mushrooms, start fires from nothing, collect rainwater, etc. It seems peaceful and natural.
But clues soon appear to suggest this is not a temporary excursion.
Will shows the girl, who’s about 13 or 14, how to follow tracks… but also how to cover their own. They conduct drills in elusion and hiding. On their rare trips into town (Portland, Ore.), Will trades the medicine he receives from the hospital for cash from homeless veterans squatting on the edge of the forest.
This is a very still, observant film. Little is explicitly stated, as we’re left to watch and gather signs. Foster, one of the finest character actors in movies today, presents us with a man who is hiding behind walls of his own creation, yet the turmoil and anxiety show through.
Is he a military veteran suffering from PTSD? Will is a person who seems very capable and confident in his own skills, yet there’s a deer-like timidity to the man. His fight-or-flight instincts are honed to an edge, and we sense that he chooses the latter in order to avoid the former.
For her part, Tom is a smart, caring girl who genuinely enjoys being with her father. Yet she is bound to become curious about the greater world beyond, and this will take the form of drawing her away from him.
There is a great and deep love between the two. Their only purpose in life seems to be to stay together.
“We can think our own thoughts,” they say, as close to a creed as they have.
Events transpire to draw them out of their seclusion. Dana Millican plays a social worker who works to preserve this tiny little family, yet nudge them toward society. Jeff Kober plays the owner of a Christmas tree farm where they come to stay for a while. He is helpful and generous, yet there is an unspoken impetus to his presence that requires deference, such as attending services at his church.
Will is not apparently anti-religious; it’s just one of many things that he has laid aside.
Dale Dickey, with that beautiful, rough face that seems like it’s hewn from raw wood, turns up as the manager of an RV park where Will and Tom live for a time. The mercurial denizens are hunters, hippies, shell-shocked soldiers and others who have chosen to recede from the world, much like Will but not to his extreme. While Tom is drawn toward this gentle space, it’s clear that Will is satisfied with a community of just two.
We know where all this is heading, but it doesn’t make the fork in the road any less hard to take. Granik, who co-wrote the screenplay with Anne Rosellini based on the novel by Peter Rock, turns her camera’s eye on these fragile, damaged folks and reveals them for who they are without judgment.
“Leave No Trace” is a heartfelt road picture in which the road is both the lure and the prison.
I’ve seen a lot of great movies so far in 2016, but “Hell or High Water” still rests at the top of the list for me. It’s a combination of old-school Western, film noir potboiler and modern parable. It’s an action-heavy picture that has something thoughtful to say about the banking crisis and how it’s affected dirt-poor folks in hardscrabble rural states.
Chris Pine and Ben Foster play Toby and Tanner Howard, rough-hewn brothers who came up on a farm in West Texas. Tanner went the outlaw route, spending most of his adulthood behind bars, while Toby’s had a rough go with his job, marriage and surviving parent all lighting out on him. Now the siblings are robbing banks at an astonishing clip -- two, even three a day.
They seem to be out for some purpose other than just money, seeing as how they target only banks in small towns. Marcus, a soon-to-retire Texas Ranger played with authority by Jeff Bridges, is put on the case since it seems too insignificant to get the federal authorities involved. Marcus and his partner (Gil Birmingham) start making the rounds, lackadaisically interviewing witnesses, etc.
Marcus has been phoning it in for years, but his dormant instincts get peppered up by the prospect of going out in a blaze of glory. A widower with no family and no real life outside the law, he’s in some ways less afeard of going down in a gunfight than rocking his way to senility on a lonely front porch.
The men gradually converge toward a dark reckoning, in which crimes will be punished and familial struggles played out. It’s a film that feels both urgent and sprawling, iconic and fresh as a daisy pushing up through parched prairie soil.
Bonus features, which are identical for DVD and Blu-ray editions, fall into the decent range. There’s a Q&A with filmmakers, footage of the red carpet premiere and three making-of featurettes: “Enemies Forever: The Characters of Hell or High Water,” “Visualizing the Heart of America” and “Damaged Heroes: The Performances of Hell or High Water.”
For a decade or so there’s been a thing in Hollywood called the Black List, which is screenplays that are greatly admired but for some reason haven’t been picked up for production. In general these tend to be smaller, more challenging stories that might not necessarily have mass appeal. The idea is to garner these languishing scripts attention so somebody will make a movie out of them.
Roughly one-third have been, including Best Picture Oscar winners “Argo,” “The King’s Speech,” “Spotlight” and “Slumdog Millionaire.” But there have also been many Black List flops like “Black Snake Moan,” “Our Brand Is Crisis,” “47 Ronin,” etc.
“Hell or High Water,” despite that subpar, generic-sounding title -- I at first thought it had something to do with boats -- belongs among any estimation of home runs.
Deeply moody and evocative, yet with a potboiler plot that steadily builds a head of steam, “Hell” is sharp as a leather strap cracked against bare skin in the scorching West Texas sun.
The film is part crime story, part throwback Western, part family reconciliation. It’s about old cowboys and young, lawmen versus bandits, the sins of bank robbers weighed against those of the bankers. It wears the long prairie duster of the Old West, as hard men wander out of the hot, flat pan and converge toward a grim reckoning.
Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and Ben Foster each deliver some of the best performances of their careers, layered and bone-deep. They’re playing outwardly simplistic men who’ve thought about their lives and found them wanting.
Bridges is Marcus, a Texas Ranger facing mandatory retirement in a few weeks who’d like to go out in a blaze of glory rather than face the terror of sitting on his front porch with no purpose to life.
With a silver mustache, thick middle and a tendency to chew his words like cud, Marcus is a legend fading before his own eyes -- probably been carrying around the same bullets in his sidearm for 15 years. He’s ornery and cussed, likes to insult the hybrid Mexican/Comanche heritage of his partner, then dismiss it as teasing.
“I don’t know how you’re going to survive without someone to outsmart,” the partner (a fine Gil Birmingham) says, giving a little back.
Pine and Foster are Toby and Tanner Howard, brothers both alike and differing in a lot of ways. Toby is reserved, thoughtful, remorseful. His marriage and job have cratered, he’s estranged from his ex-wife and teenage sons, just buried his mother after a long illness and is trying to prevent the bank from foreclosing on the family ranch.
Tanner is a career criminal who calculates he’s spent half of his adult life behind bars, a dead-ender who embraces his outlaw reputation and calls it an ethos. He never makes any plans beyond the limits of the cash in his pocket or what he can steal. He does what he does because he’s good at it and he likes it; as Marcus wryly observes, if Tanner ever got himself a big pile of money he’d probably spend it all on stupid junk just so he could have an excuse to go out and steal again.
The Howard boys are knocking over small-fry banks in tiny Texas towns, places with names like Coleman and Post, sometimes two or three a day. Too small a haul to warrant FBI attention, it’s dropped into Marcus’ lap. He makes the rounds, interviews the witnesses, is confounded by the repeated lack of video surveillance. At first bored, his old juices get flowing again. They’re just the sort of crimes that seem random and stupid, but require a smart mind to string together.
Directed by David Mackenzie (“Young Adam”) from a script by Taylor Sheridan (“Sicario”), this is the sort of movie that’s always on the move but never seems in a hurry. It takes the time to flesh out scenes and polish minor characters, like the sassy waitress who refuses to relinquish the fat tip the brothers left with (maybe) stolen money. Or the elderly cowpoke caught up in one of the robberies who, when asked if he’s armed, spits, “Of course I’ve got a gun!”
“Hell or High Water” is a taut modern masterpiece that learned its lessons well from the classics -- both the tough, unruly Texas folk and the movies made about them.
As we edge closer to year's end, film critics have started work on The List.
The List, of course, is the best movies we've seen this year. With 2½ months left to go in 2010, I feel confident "Winter's Bone" will have a place among my Top 10.
This sharp, authentic drama from director and writer (with Anne Rossellini) Debra Granik still grips me. From the spot-on, Oscar-caliber performances from Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes to the severe beauty of the Missouri terrain that frames the characters, "Winter's Bone" bleeds its way into an audience's soul.
Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, a smart, willful teenager who dropped out of school to look after her younger siblings and mentally impaired mother. They survive the cold in a ramshackle cabin, relying on squirrel meat and the charity of neighbors.
One day the sheriff shows up to inform Ree her drug addict father has jumped bail after putting the family plot up for collateral. If he doesn't show, they'll be put out.
Much of the plot is taken up with Ree's journey, on foot, to visit her scattered kinfolks in search of her dad. Suspicious of outsiders -- even those with whom they share blood -- the mountain people are unwilling to help beyond the offer of a little cash and menacing warnings.
Even her uncle Teardrop (Hawkes), who's feared by lawman and criminal alike, rejects her pleas for help -- at first.
Expect "Winter's Bone" to show up on a lot of critics' lists.
Video extras -- the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions -- are terrific, and easily turn this disc from a rental to must-buy.
Granik and cinematographer Michael McDonough team up for an excellent feature-length commentary track. They talk not just about how they composed individual shots, but touch again and again on the happenstance that continually blessed the production.
A number of the principle actors were non-professionals they ran into and cast in the film. In the 43-minute making-of documentary, William White is asked on his last day of shooting what he'll do next. The next morning, he says, he'll head back to his factory job as a wirecutter.
The same feature also includes audition footage for several of the actors, which is intercut with the final scene from the movie -- thrilling stuff.
There's also an alternate opening sequence, four deleted scenes, theatrical trailer, links to songs and musicians featured in the film, and a lovely musical sequence set to "Hardscrabble Elegy," the main theme composed by Dickon Hinchliffe.
"Winter's Bone" has a sharp authenticity like a leather strap to the face on a marrow-freezing night. It's a bracing, thrilling cinematic experience -- its tragic charms are not to be missed.
Watching this mesmerizing drama from director Debra Granik, which she co-wrote with Anne Rosellini based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, I'm reminded of "Frozen River," another stark indie about a rural woman pushed to extremes by looming destitution.
Except in this film, the heroine is not even full-grown.
Ree Dolly is a 17-year-old wise beyond her years -- a necessity when you've dropped out of school to raise your younger siblings because your father has run off to cook meth and your mother has absorbed so much heartbreak, there's only a shell of a woman left.
Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree in a performance with weight and conviction. Despite her unlined face, she lends Ree a weary, aged soul.
Early on, there's a scene where she wanders through her old high school, peering in on the home ec classes and ROTC drills she's left behind. It's a wordless, wistful look back over the shoulder for a girl who's been robbed of decisions about her own life. There are no forks in her road ahead.
At their ramshackle home, Ree's brother watches their neighbor butchering a deer and wonders if he should ask for some meat. "Never ask for what ought to be offered," she instructs.
Ree's glum, dirt-poor existence is at least stable, until the sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) arrives with the news that her father Jessup has jumped bail after putting the family home and plot up for collateral. If he doesn't show up in court, they lose what little they have.
Hedged in by the cloistered countryfolk, with their secretive ways and ancient codes of honor, Ree has little choice but to go around knocking on doors asking after her dad. Many of these terse, unhelpful encounters are with fellow Dollys, and she learns that if blood is thicker than water, it doesn't always flow as freely when it comes to familial kindness.
"Some of our blood at least is the same," Ree says to one disobliging woman. "Ain't that supposed to mean something?"
"Ain't you got no man to do this?" the relation (a solid Dale Dickey) responds.
This exchange highlights a key aspect of Ree's world: Women are automatically assumed to be subservient to men. They're caretakers and gatekeepers to their husbands and brothers. It's something even smart ones like Ree accept without question -- it's baked into the family bread.
At one point Ree is beaten to a pulp for her transgressions, and when her uncle, Teardrop, shows up to claim her, the only question he asks is to make certain that only women laid hands on her, not men. This, by the way, is the same uncle who choked Ree a day earlier.
The implication is that among their kind, violence against women is perfectly acceptable as long as it's kept in the family.
Teardrop is played by John Hawkes in a layered performance of veiled menace, and something else hidden even deeper.
Despite seeming small and spindly, Teardrop's reputation is such that lawman and drug kingpin alike take a step back when they see him coming. Teardrop is aware of their fear, cradles and nurtures it, and wields it when necessary; he accepts who he is without relishing the brutality that often travels with him. It's an Oscar-caliber turn.
What I admired most about Granik's approach is that she never for a moment looks down on these people. Though Ree may shoot squirrels to put meat on the table, and be ashamed of her father's involvement in drugs, there's a stubborn pride that runs through like a backbone.
With all the cold receptions she receives on doorstep after doorstep, the only time she becomes offended is when it's suggested she might talk to the authorities about the family business. And when someone claims her father blew up a meth lab, Ree responds with indignation: "He's known for knowing what he's doing."
"Winter's Bone" is a film that knows what it's doing, and does it with chilling expertise.
