While a lot of the big-budgeted studio films funded by Hollywood show us fantasies about the American experience, "Winter's Bone" does not. It's a gritty and disturbing look at rural America in the Ozarks, the mountainous, foothill and wooded region between the Appalachians to the east and the Rocky Mountains to the West. This is definitely hillbilly country where people listen to blue-grass music, hunt wild game for food, and live in simple houses and drive cheap cars and trucks. They also have strange intertwined relationships. Some of them engage in behavior which would make the upper-crust of mainstream America cringe, but they don't snitch on each other because this would be considered disloyal to their community. This self-contained bubble is the setting of "Winter's Bone".
Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence in her first acclaimed performance prior to the "Hunger Games") is a 17-year-old forced by circumstance to be the care-giver of her siblings, 12-year-old Sonny and 6-year-old of Ashlee. Ree Dolly has to be parent, head-of-household and bread-winner for her family. Their mother is sick in the head, unable to deal with family problems, and their father Jessup is long-gone. He's been accused of being a methamphetamine ("crystal meth") "cooker", and he put up the family's small log cabin as bond collateral after he was arrested, and he has a pending court date. The trouble is, no one knows where he is, and the family could lose the house if he doesn't appear in court.
On top of her other duties as the current head-of-household of her family, Ree has to find the whereabouts of her father. She then goes around her "neighbors" who know her family, some of them part of meth production and dealing, asking what happened to her father. These members of this community, if community it can be called, are all tight-lipped about her father, all claiming they either don't know what happened to him or they know and yet have no intention of letting her or anyone else know the fate of her father.
The only adult member of her extended family who is functioning reasonably well is her uncle Teardrop, her father's brother. We get the sense that he also may have cooked meth. He makes up a story about what happened to him with some physical evidence, but she doesn't buy it. Early in the film, Ree Dolly tried to speak with the "godfather" of the locals, Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall), who probably oversees much of the meth production and dealing, but she's turned away. Then she realizes she may have crossed some kind of unknown line when she returns to the Milton residence only to be taken into their barn by force.
This is quite an interesting yet not exactly entertaining film. Jennifer Lawrence shows early on why she became an A-list actress with an Academy-Award nominated performance. The story is entirely from her point of view, and her acting is as compelling as the natural landscape. Aside from the grim but compelling storyline, one aspect should be celebrated: this film has some of the most amazing shots of the Ozarks region I've ever seen in a narrative film, probably the best since "Deliverance" which takes place in the neighboring Appalachians. The broken-down cars and unkempt houses are certainly not sites for sore eyes, however, the landscapes of trees and foothills, especially during the twilight hours when a soft mist coats the scenery are breath-taking. Maybe the point of the story, which is not exactly touchy-feely, is that these people live in a beautiful part of America and yet live very dark and shabby lives. If their lives could improve and be closer to the beauty which surrounds them, maybe their lives could be more beautiful too.
Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence in her first acclaimed performance prior to the "Hunger Games") is a 17-year-old forced by circumstance to be the care-giver of her siblings, 12-year-old Sonny and 6-year-old of Ashlee. Ree Dolly has to be parent, head-of-household and bread-winner for her family. Their mother is sick in the head, unable to deal with family problems, and their father Jessup is long-gone. He's been accused of being a methamphetamine ("crystal meth") "cooker", and he put up the family's small log cabin as bond collateral after he was arrested, and he has a pending court date. The trouble is, no one knows where he is, and the family could lose the house if he doesn't appear in court.
On top of her other duties as the current head-of-household of her family, Ree has to find the whereabouts of her father. She then goes around her "neighbors" who know her family, some of them part of meth production and dealing, asking what happened to her father. These members of this community, if community it can be called, are all tight-lipped about her father, all claiming they either don't know what happened to him or they know and yet have no intention of letting her or anyone else know the fate of her father.
The only adult member of her extended family who is functioning reasonably well is her uncle Teardrop, her father's brother. We get the sense that he also may have cooked meth. He makes up a story about what happened to him with some physical evidence, but she doesn't buy it. Early in the film, Ree Dolly tried to speak with the "godfather" of the locals, Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall), who probably oversees much of the meth production and dealing, but she's turned away. Then she realizes she may have crossed some kind of unknown line when she returns to the Milton residence only to be taken into their barn by force.
This is quite an interesting yet not exactly entertaining film. Jennifer Lawrence shows early on why she became an A-list actress with an Academy-Award nominated performance. The story is entirely from her point of view, and her acting is as compelling as the natural landscape. Aside from the grim but compelling storyline, one aspect should be celebrated: this film has some of the most amazing shots of the Ozarks region I've ever seen in a narrative film, probably the best since "Deliverance" which takes place in the neighboring Appalachians. The broken-down cars and unkempt houses are certainly not sites for sore eyes, however, the landscapes of trees and foothills, especially during the twilight hours when a soft mist coats the scenery are breath-taking. Maybe the point of the story, which is not exactly touchy-feely, is that these people live in a beautiful part of America and yet live very dark and shabby lives. If their lives could improve and be closer to the beauty which surrounds them, maybe their lives could be more beautiful too.