Leave No Trace

Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini adapted Peter Rock’s 2009 novel My Abandonment, drawn loosely from the real case of a father and daughter found living in Portland’s Forest Park. Shooting took place in Portland in the spring of 2017, with the main forest scenes at Eagle Fern Park. Granik refuses to make the state the villain. The assessment finds Tom ahead of her age group although she has never attended school, and the house and the job come from the same agency. Their money comes from Will selling his prescribed medication to another homeless veteran. The parting is not staged as a crisis: Tom tells her father she knows he would stay if he could. Thomasin McKenzie carries the film. The New Zealand actress was 16 when she flew to Portland for the shoot, and the part won her the National Board of Review award for Breakthrough Performance. Granik won Best Director from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. A good fit if you want institutions and people drawn with the same patience, as when the social worker asks Tom whether sharing a tent with her father makes her uncomfortable. Not for anyone who needs the ending to say which of them was right; the parting is a hug on a trail and the film leaves it unsettled.