Shot on location in the sparse woods and sullen landscape of southwest Missouri, where a car and a washing machine, neither in working order, serve as front-yard ornaments, "Winter's Bone" is an excellent movie, with fine, on-the-money performances. It's pessimistic and depressing, discusses family loyalty that has turned to stupidity and lives in the sub-culture of methamphetamines.
Certainly not the stuff of comedy.
Based on Daniel Woodrell's excellent novel, Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini wrote a hard, taut, unflinching screenplay and Granik directed in a stylish and understated manner, using the barren, unfertile country as a metaphor and a backdrop for the lifestyle of Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), her family and friends. The 17-year-old Ree has more than enough on her plate. Her mother is living in a world far away and is unavailable to help, so the responsibility for taking care of her run-down house and her two much younger siblings falls squarely on her shoulders.
Making matters worse is the fact that her father, one of the county's finest cookers of meth, has been arrested. As bail, he put up his house and land. Then he vanished, and while Sheriff Baskin (Garret Dillahunt) is kind and understanding, he plans on taking the house.
Ree goes looking for her bail-jumping father, but is shocked by the attitude of friends, neighbors, even relatives. They are following some archaic code of family loyalty, though the loyalty does not reach as far as Ree and the smaller children. In fact, in a scary scene, members of her family beat Ree to convince her to give up her search, and when she asks, "Are you going to kill me?" one of them responds that it had been discussed. Lawrence, a native of Kentucky, looks right and sounds right, offering a superior, attention-grabbing performance. John Hawkes, as her uncle, also is first-rate.
An interesting moment shows a distressed Ree, desperate to get out of her environment and perhaps make something of herself, meeting with an Army recruiter (the very good Tate Taylor) who advises her that this form of running away is not a good idea, that she seems to lack any understanding of what the Army is all about, to the point where she thinks she can take the siblings with her. He's kind, mature and understanding, and it makes one wish all Army recruiters were so sensitive.
"Winter's Bone" opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
–Joe