Review of Leave No Trace (2018) by James L — 30 Jun 2018

Don't watch the trailer! I went to see it knowing very little about it. Just now I watched the trailer, and realized how much better off I was without having seen it. This is a very special movie, with its own pace, and the tension in so many scenes would have been ruined if I'd known where the film was going. Try to avoid the reviews too, though it's wonderful to read them afterwards, and to feel the satisfaction of knowing that a movie like this can be appreciated so well.

I would've given this memorable film five stars, but, reflecting on it later, I think there are two issues that should've been addressed but weren't. One is the risk of sexual assault by strangers in the wild that the girl's father exposed her to, which no one seemed to point out - not the characters within the story, nor the writers (I'd kept waiting for this kind of thing to happen.).

Second, the absence of backstory struck me as more of a minus than a plus. I was left with questions later that distracted from the initial impact this film had on me. For example, re: the girl's mother: her favorite color wasn't enough. And some gaps in the plausibility of their life in the woods could easily have been filled without sacrificing the purity that the screenwriters seemed to be going for. Too easy. Less is not always more.