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Leave No Trace poster

Leave No Trace

2018 ยท 109 min ยท movie
โญ 7.1 (70,558 votes)

Will, a veteran suffering from PTSD, lives with his teenage daughter Tom in the old growth Forest Park in Portland, Oregon. They live in isolation, relying on survival skills and only entering the town occasionally for supplies. Will makes money by selling his Veterans Health Administration -issued benzodiazepines to another homeless veteran.

After Tom is spotted in the woods by a jogger, the father and daughter duo are arrested by park rangers and detained by social services. They are assessed and Tom is found to be educationally advanced for her age despite not attending school. They find 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 meets a local boy who is building his own tiny house, who introduces her to the local 4-H youth club. Social services continue to check on Will and Tom and require constant form filling.

One morning, Will suddenly decides to leave. Tom follows reluctantly. The pair return to their camp in the park, but find it 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. After being dropped off, at a remote forest area, they build a temporary shelter for the night. The next day they discover a vacant cabin and move in. Will leaves to find food but does not return. The next morning, Tom discovers him unconscious at the bottom of a ravine with a seriously injured foot.

Tom 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 to treat Will's injury. Will and Tom are given an empty trailer in the community while he recovers. The medic also has PTSD and lends his service dog to help Will with his nightmares. A local teaches Tom about beehives. Tom likes their new home and tries to make a rental agreement with Dale, the trailer's owner, without telling Will. Eventually, Will insists that he and Tom leave. Tom protests, telling him "the same thing that's wrong with you isn't wrong with me".

After leaving the RV community, Tom stops and says to Will, "I know you would stay if you could". They tearfully hug and part ways. Tom returns to the trailer community, and Will returns to the woods. Later, Tom hangs a food package in the forest.

Directed by

Debra Granik

Starring

Ben Foster
Thomasin McKenzie
Jeff Kober
Dale Dickey
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