Saw
Leave No Trace this morning.
It's a very quiet film, much less plot-driven than
Winter's Bone. There's no real plot, it's just a matter of waiting for the story to get to the point you know is coming.
I guess the most similar film I can think of right now is
Lost in Translation, which I like very much. If you didn't care for
Lost in Translation, maybe this picture isn't for you.
One thing to keep in mind is that in the end it's all about the girl, not the father. It's about her own decisions in her own life.
There are no bad guys in this film. The people in the film are all, as far as I could tell, people of integrity, honesty, and kindness. There is no politics in the film other than in perhaps one small scene.
There will be at least two Oscar nominations here, for Thomasin McKenzie, Best Actress, and Dale Dickey, for Supporting Actress. Dale Dickey, wow, just great, perfect, wow.
There is a terrific multi-scene sequence about bees and beekeeping which was very touching and heartening. That was really cool.
Anyway, I liked it very much. I still have a preference for
Winter's Bone, but that is a completely different movie other than the fact the characters in both movies are not of a type often seen in cinema. There is a respect inherent in Granik's approach to the "locals" in her films which I find to be very loving. It seems that she has the ability to reach all of us by showing the travails of hard-working people, Americans all, in a culture so different that it shocks the viewers' systems and so impacts us, the viewers, all the more. You could feel that Granik was telling us that every character in the movie had his or her own story to tell.
Here's Dale Dickey and Thomasin McKenzie:
