MOVIES
JULY 20-26
BY RICK LEVIN
43 W. BROADWAY
(541) 686-2458
REGULAR
ADMISSION
$9 ADULTS
$8 STUDENTS
$6 SENIORS
$6 BEFORE 5 PM
OPEN EVERY DAY
BOUNDARIES
DAILY
12:20 2:40 5:00 7:20
YELLOW SUBMARINE
FRI-SUN
9:45
MON-WED 12:15 5:00 9:45
THU 7/26 12:15 5:00
WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
FRI
12:15 1:15 2:30 3:30 4:45
5:45 7:00 7:50 9:45
SAT
11:00 1:15 2:30 3:30 4:45
5:45 7:00 7:50 9:45
SUN
12:15 1:15 2:30 3:30 4:45
5:45 7:00 7:50 9:45
MON-WED 12:15 1:15 2:30 3:30
5:45 7:00 7:50 9:45
THU 7/26 12:15 1:15 2:30 3:30
5:45
7:50 9:45
AMERICAN ANIMALS
DAILY
2:30 7:10 9:30
HEARTS BEAT LOUD
FRI-SUN 12:20 5:00
MON-THU
5:00
HEREDITARY
FRI-WED 9:05
THU 7/26 9:30
METROarts
PREMIUM EVENT ADMISSION
THE ROYAL BALLET: SWAN LAKE
11:00
7:00
SAT
THU 7/26
7/20 - 7/26
492 E. 13th Ave
541-357-0375
MOVIES
THAT
bijou-cinemas.com
MATTER
Serving the Eugene Community for Over 35 Years!
THIS IS NOT A DRILL
LEAVE NO TRACE (PG)
A father and daughter go off the grid in Oregon in Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace
D
irector Debra Granik’s 2010 coming-of-age drama Win-
ter’s Bone set a new highwater mark for American inde-
pendent cinema. A work of anxious discovery, ancient en-
tanglements and emotional courage, it remains one of the
finest films of the past 25 years.
Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell about a teenage girl’s
desperate search for her wayward father in the Ozarks, Winter’s
Bone achieved that rarest of cinematic feats: It simultaneously
humanized and mythologized a population rarely acknowledged,
much less captured accurately in art — in this case, the rural poor
of Missouri, who move within complex social strata ruled by a
moral code that, although brutally enforced, maintains an honor
largely lost to the so-called modern world.
Granik, working with screenwriter Anne Rosellini, bestowed
a tragic dignity upon the characters in Winter’s Bone, returning
them to themselves as they are, mirror-like and unadorned by easy
assessments. And in so doing, she created a world driven by good
and bad choices instead of good and bad people — the opposite of
the artistic mugshots Hollywood usually offers when dealing with
crime, drugs and poverty.
Granik and Rosellini, working from the novel My Abandonment
by Peter Rock, pull off a similar feat with Leave No Trace, a new
film set in an Oregon that, at times, looks and feels a lot like the
forsaken Ozarks of Winter’s Bone.
The story is as simple as its ramifications are staggeringly
complicated: Will (Ben Foster), a Gulf War vet, and his 13-year-
old daughter Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), are living off the grid on
forested public land just outside Portland. After the film’s opening
scenes — a brief idyll of edenic, if slightly haunted, life in the woods
— they are suddenly caught and thereby dragged by well-meaning
social workers into the bureaucratic regulations of civilization, with
its doorways, four walls and endless forms to fill out.
Unlike Winter’s Bone, which was fraught throughout with the
promise of explosive violence, the tensions of Leave No Trace are
bloodless and amorphous, though no less perilous. Will, whose
post-traumatic stress puts him on perpetual high alert, is anti-social
to the core; the mere presence of anyone but his daughter poses the
direst threat. For instance, the psych test he undergoes becomes a
nightmare worthy of Kafka.
Tom, for her part, is undyingly loyal to her father, and an apt
pupil of his survivalist ways. But she is also a girl on the verge of
womanhood, and although well read and seemingly well adjusted
to survivalist life, she yearns for human connection and experiences
beyond her wildly isolated existence.
Nothing all that dramatic happens in Leave No Trace, and yet
the film is completely mesmerizing and even suspenseful. The rich,
anxious vibrations of its narrative reside less in particular incidents
than in the almost telepathic interactions of Tom and Will, whose
bond is jeopardized by forces within and without.
Foster and McKenzie carry the film so gracefully, with such
understated fragility and tenderness, that it’s impossible to see
anyone else in the roles.
At the invisible center of it all is Granik, who seems more
interested in actually listening to her characters than she does in
pinning them wriggling to the wall of her narrative. A looseness to
her storytelling contains its own strange fatality, like the slow ebb
and flow of tides. Rather than imposing some strict architecture
on her story, she allows it to breathe, eking out dichotomies —
freedom vs. security, nature vs. civilization, individual vs. society,
rich vs. poor — that shuffle and blend in revealing ways.
And yet, despite the deep irony that two human beings living
independently in the woods are considered “unhoused” and
therefore in need of forcible help, the movie is much more than
a socio-economic parable about the dangers of going off the grid.
At bottom, Leave No Trace is about human bonds, and
specifically the bond of parents and children. Tom and Will’s
story, beyond its acute and seemingly extraordinary specifics, is
a timeless one — about pain and growth, failing and adapting and
letting go.
As with Winter’s Bone, Granik gives the story of Will and Tom
a mythic quality without losing grip on the hard realities of life,
from annoying paperwork to leaky lean-tos. Both films portray
a final rite of passage that would only be tragic in its inability
to be confronted. Heartbreak, in this sense, has never looked so
inevitable, and necessary.
As with all solid works of art, how you feel about the final act
of Leave No Trace will say far more about you than it does about
the film. Either way, it will leave its trace. (Bijou Art Cinemas) ■
A father ((Ben Foster) and his thirteen year-old daughter
(Thomasin McKenzie) are living an ideal existence in
a vast urban park in Portland, Oregon, when a small
mistake derails their lives forever. Directed by Debra
Granik (Winter’s Bone). The best reviewed movie of the
summer and 100% RT.
1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (PG-13)
New York, 1980: three complete strangers accidentally
discover that they are identical triplets, separated at
birth. The 19-year-olds’ joyous reunion catapults them to
international fame, but it also unlocks an extraordinary
and disturbing secret that goes beyond their own lives -
and could transform our understanding of human nature
forever.
1:30, 4:00, 6:30, 8:45
COMING SOON:
Wednesday, August 1st at 6 pm:
EOS presents VINCENT VAN GOGH: A NEW WAY OF SEEING
TICKET PRICES: MATINEE before 5pm $6
ADULT $8 | STUDENT $7 | SENIOR 62+ $6 CHILD age 12 & under $6
eugeneweekly.com • July 19, 2018
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