By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
In “Leave No Trace,” PTSD-afflicted veteran Will (Ben Foster) and his 13-year-old daughter Tom (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) have lived off the grid for many years in Forest Park, an eight-square mile nature reserve near Portland, Oregon.
Adept in survival skills, they pick berries, mushrooms and plants to eat, cook over a makeshift wood fire, catch rain water to drink, and sleep huddled in a small tent — their forest sanctuary.
Aside from occasional “supply” trips into town, they avoid all contact with the outside world. But when Tom is spotted by a hiker, park rangers with dogs come searching and take them into custody.
After initially separating them and subjecting each to respectful, yet intensive evaluations, a concerned social worker (Dana Millican) relocates Will and Tom into a small, sparsely furnished house on a Christmas tree farm, urging them into society’s mainstream.
Inquisitive Tom learns to ride a bike and befriends a boy (Isiah Stone) who raises rabbits. When Will gets restless, they move north to a rural co-op in Washington state, where Tom learns about beekeeping and comes to appreciate their neighbors’ kindness and hospitality.
Will is an attentive, devoted father yet, no matter where they go, he stubbornly plots their escape back into the wilderness, while Tom subtly yearns for some sense of shelter and security.
Based on Peter Rock’s novel “My Abandonment” (2009), the bittersweet conflict clearly delineates one person’s rebellious desire for isolation with another’s desire for stability and community.
Delving into his traumatized character’s understated complexity, Ben Foster radiates anxiety mixed with melancholy, and perceptive Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, a newcomer from New Zealand, exudes sensitivity and determination.
Collaborating on the screenplay, Anne Rosellini and director Debra Granik (“Winter’s Bone”) create a unique coming-of-age story, empathizing equally with father and daughter, amplified by Michael McDonough’s naturalistic, yet evocative cinematography.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Leave No Trace” is a compelling, compassionate 9, a powerful character study.
Clarification: Disney’s new “Christopher Robin” bears only a superficial resemblance to “Goodbye Christopher Robin” (2017) about the resentful, real-life son of A.A. Milne. Don’t confuse them.
As the live-action story begins, young Christopher Robin (Orton O’Brien) is in the Hundred Acre Wood, bidding farewell to his friends — Pooh Bear, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Baby Roo — before departing for boarding school, announcing: “I’m not going to do nothing anymore.”
Years pass. He goes off to war, marries Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), gets a flat in London and has a lovely daughter, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). That’s really a prologue.
Middle-aged Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) works as efficiency manager for a luggage company that’s losing money, so he cancels an eagerly anticipated family weekend at their cottage in Sussex.
The angst of disappointing Evelyn and Madeline precipitates an emotional crisis, as Pooh Bear squeezes through a hollow tree and magically appears in a London park, seeking Christopher Robin’s help in finding their animal friends who seem to have disappeared.
So Christopher Robin rediscovers what’s really important in life and re-connects with his family.
Utilizing A.A. Milne’s imaginative characters, it’s based on a story by Gregg Booker and Mark Steven Johnson and simplistically scripted by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarth, and Allison Schroeder. Too bad they devote so much screen time to a pesky neighbor and the frantic car chase to the luggage company.
After helming “Finding Neverland,” director Marc Foster has experience combining real-life actors with CGI, shifting tones and adeptly utilizing the voices of Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Toby Jones, etc.
FYI: British author A.A. Milne published his first Winnie the Pooh story on Dec. 24, 1925 in the London Evening News; the Hundred Acre Wood was based on Ashdown Forest near his home in East Sussex, and the name Winnie referenced a famous bear in the London zoo.
On the Granger Gauge, “Christopher Robin” is a sweet, sentimental 7, a low-key, feel-good family film.
It’s been more than 20 years since the TV series “The Equalizer” (1985-1989) made its debut opposite Denzel Washington’s popular “St. Elsewhere.” Now in “The Equalizer 2,” Denzel has become shadowy Robert McCall, the ex-CIA Black Ops assassin-turned-vigilante.
In the 2014 original, righteous McCall was a grieving widower determined to wreak vengeance for a victimized teenage prostitute (Chloe Grace Moretz).
Now he’s back, working in Boston as a laconic Lyft driver who, when his passengers are in danger, comes to their aid. Like when some spoiled, rich kids get their kicks by drugging and raping a defenseless woman. McCall brutally slices one with his own credit cards, muttering, “I expect a five-star rating.”
Then there’s Sam (Orson Bean), a Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivor who wants to recover a painting stolen from his family by the Nazis.
But McCall’s bigger worry concerns young Miles (Ashton Sanders), an aspiring artist considering joining a street gang. He lives in the same apartment complex as McCall, who gives him a copy of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me” and hires him to repaint a defaced mural instead.
McCall has remained close to Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo), his former CIA handler who, aside from her husband Brian (Bill Pullman), is the only person who knows he’s still alive.
When Susan goes to Brussels with colleague Dave York (Pedro Pascal), she meets her untimely demise. That catapults McCall into action, since he’s obviously the next target on the hit list of a bunch of bad guys, culminating in a climactic fight during a Category 5 hurricane in coastal Massachusetts.
Adapted by Richard Wenk and directed by Antoine Fuqua, this cliché-cluttered, avenging hero melodrama is the first sequel of both Washington and Fuqua’s long, productive careers. Too had that it’s so fragmented with subplots, making it emerge as unfocused, filled with unnecessarily sadistic violence.
On the Granger Gauge, “The Equalizer 2” is a ponderously contrived 5, but both Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua are considering a threquel.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
