Review of Leave No Trace (2018) by Annine M — 22 Jul 2018

I totally do not get the enthusiastic reviews this movie has received by movie critics. The director of this present day fable also directed Winter's Bone, which depicted the rustic and backward Appalachian life.

Both movies are centered on a preternaturally skilled teenage girl gifted with the ability to survive the most rugged hardships of indigent life with a kind of executive acumen. In Leave No Trace, it is hard to determine the girl's age: in the beginning of the movie her speech resembles a 10 years old, but she appears to be about 13.

The symbolism of the goodness of life is so overwrought and unsubtle. In this setting, bees are some kind of metaphor for the wonder of life. I had a similar reaction to the insipid, but incredibly popular novel, Secret Life of Bees.

Motherless daughters with unstable fathers don't generally grow up to be self-possessed teenage heroines. They internally suffer as they struggle to cope emotionally and physically. And they are prey to all kinds of predators.

What is the point of using barely pubescent girls to feign an obnoxiously idealized version of humanity under strain? In the Secret Life of Bees, a black teenage boy surviving the Jim Crow south has the presence of mind to give his white girl friend a journal, instead of being confused, angry and ravaged by a racist culture.

In Leave No Trace, the honor goes to the girl's disabled veteran father, who despite his PTSD and inability to cope in society, is an incredibly skilled survivalist who teaches his daughter not only military style survival skills, but to proficiently read, play chess, and comprehend and make philosophical arguments for and against modern life.

The landscape and scenery of rugged wilderness and dense forests were beautifully filmed giving the fairy tale ending a lovely setting. This movie fails my verisimilitude test.