It is a cast that makes the folks from Deliverance seem tame. Your typical Wal-Mart shoppers on the outside, evil rural yokels on the inside. Cletus gone bad. Very bad. In Winter’s Bone, Ree Dolly, played by Jennifer Lawrence (the new Renee Zelwegger), is among them, but rises above to let us know that if we’re ever driving through the Ozarks and our car breaks down, at least maybe there’s one person we can trust to fetch us some help (and maybe even dish out a nice squirrel stew while we’re waiting).
Ree is seventeen and the unintentional head of a rural mountain family that includes her younger brother and sister. Her mother is ill – mentally, we are to assume – and her father is missing. The latter is especially problematic. The father’s main means of income to support the household, as it happens, was manufacturing crystal meth. The local drug trade seems to be the major industry of the area. He was arrested and out on bond when he happened to disappear. The problem is that the family’s house and ten acres of timber was put up to secure the bond. This is where the film begins. Ree is in danger of losing everything (not much to begin with) and must find her father to stop the seizure of her family’s property. Otherwise, she and her family will be relegated to “living in the fields like dogs” (much the same way the Review forum has been relegated to “sub-forum” status of Arts, Music, and Entertainment, but let us leave that for another thread).
To ascertain the whereabouts of her father, Ree begins asking questions of the local populace, most of whom seem related in some way (probably in a way that’s illegal in most states). The questions are met with threats and physical violence, but Ree keeps asking. Meanwhile, she is busy raising her siblings on little or no money, trying to make a life of some description for what’s left of her family. She is tough and strong and mature well beyond her seventeen years and we root hard for her.
Debra Granik, screenplay co-writer, directs this moody film – set appropriately in winter – and delivers the perfect tone. The film is cold and bleak, sometimes depressing, sometimes macabre. Lawrence is outstanding and worthy of Oscar consideration. The rest of the cast is good, too, including John Hawkes (The Perfect Storm) as Ree’s uncle. This is one of those films where the mood is almost as important as the plot, or is certainly a necessary part of it. That doesn’t necessarily make it easy to sit through. One experiences a film like this more than watches it. It’s hard to even call it enjoyable. But it’s just so well done – and Jennifer Lawrence is just so damn good – that it’s worth the trip. Just don’t forget to bring your banjo.
8/10