The Extent of Familial Bonds

A while back I had great pleasure of seeing Winter's Bone, the second film by Debra Granik (Down to the Bone). Let me just start out by saying that it is an amazing movie.

Jennifer Lawrence is in a star-making role as a teenaged girl (Ree Dolly) who is forced by circumstances to be the head of her household. Her mother is sick and for all intents and purposes incapacitated. Her father is a methamphetamine producer who put the deed to his home up as collateral to a bail bond agency; but he's gone missing. And he's turned rat so the rest of his meth producing family hates him and by extension his wife and three children. Ree has to produce her father and send him back to jail or the bail bond agency will take her family's house and land. The only person in her family (remember, they all think that because Ree's father was a snitch that she'd be a stool pigeon too) willing to help her is her father's brother, Teardrop (John Hawkes). At nearly every turn while investigating her father's whereabouts with her family she is stonewalled at the instruction of the family patriarch Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall).
And I don't want to ruin the ending or some of the more shocking parts, so I'll stop there.

Very stark in appearance and cinematography, it has been called an "Ozark noir." As a film noir fanatic I am somewhat protective of noirs and neo-noirs and what should be included as one. Although I think "Ozark noir" is an alright descriptor, it doesn't fit the typical noir mold. What it is, however, is a detective story through and through. She has to sift through the various branches of her family tree to get to the truth of her father's location.

As the title suggests the film takes place in the winter. There is no green. Everything is brown and barren. You see the ratty and torn winter coats. The mood is wonderfully set.

The shots are very simple; there is no flashiness here. As such it's the directing and acting that stand out. The director Debra Granik, with her second feature length film, demands much from her actors, and boy do they deliver. Three of the main actors (Lawrence, Hawkes, and Dale Dickey) may just be entering the public consciousness. Lawrence's only other major work was The Bill Engval Show, at TV sitcom for TBS; Hawkes has been around in supporting roles in several films, but may best be known for his roles on TV's Lost and Deadwood; and Dickey is best known for her work on My Name is Earl as Patty the daytime hooker.

A little bit of personal history here: I spend four years living in North Dakota. Even though I didn't live in the country, I am familiar with people who do live in the country and that some of their families have lived there for many generations. Many rural areas have, unbeknownst to many city-dwellers, very decently sized meth problems, both with cooking and with using. Another aspect that I recognized was how it seemed like everyone was related to each other. I know people from rural areas of North Dakota, towns of 500 people, and it seems like they are related to at least one quarter of the town.

Because of the the power of the characters and the strength of the performances; because of the direction, and because of the tone of the movie, I give this movie an A, or a 9.5/10.