Winter's Bone (2010)

Directed by: Debra Granik
Written by: Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, Daniel Woodrell (novel)
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Kevin Breznahan, Dale Dickey, Garret Dillahunt, Shelley Waggener, Lauren Sweetser

Jessup Dolly has had a long history with meth amphetamines in the small community of the Ozark Mountains. The man's a cooker, and a good one; as such, he's cultivated a deep involvement with the criminal underground of his small impoverished town.

He's also disappeared while out on bond. His daughter, Ree Dolly, soon finds that her dad had used their ancestral home as collateral for bail. If she can't find her father, alive or dead, then the small family - which includes her two young siblings and her nearly catatonic mother - will be put out of their home and onto the street with barely a dollar to their names.

While Jessup was an addict and a criminal, Ree has kept herself clean. The 17-year-old holds a strong contempt for crank, and has developed a reasonable fear of the grown men who abuse it. Realizing that the home of her small family is on the line, she goes against repeated warnings and threats of physical harm and even death to infiltrate and challenge the local murky criminal network in order to solve the mystery of the fate that has befallen her father.

The main goal of film is to take the viewer to interesting places, and to introduce them to interesting characters, and Winter's Bone has this in spades. The Ozark community, portrayed here with a raw and unflinching stare, is very different from the rest of the country. Seeing this small town makes one feel it could be from a different period in time; it is a completely different culture than that which exists in the large cities of the United States, so different that most 'city folk' would likely have a tough time correctly conceiving of it beyond gross stereotypes.

The most fascinating thing about this film is its people. It does not rely upon silly country stereotypes. The personalities within Winter's Bone are rich, varied, and fully realized. This is not a film featuring Hollywood imagined yokels on drugs. The denizens of Winter's Bone are as real as it can get. They are extremely private, very proud, and have an unshakable loyalty to kin. It will leave you feeling that you might really know these people, might understand them, if just a little, for having shared with them this very strange story of family loyalty, criminal skulduggery, and personal heroism.

The community itself is still based upon the old patriarchy that larger US cultures have long begun to molt. The men rule the Ozark town, and far be it from any woman to challenge anything they do. Ree's investigation is often challenged due to her gender alone, with one woman asking contemptuously, "Don't you have a man who can do this for you?" While most of the other townsfolk shake their heads at her persistence, you get the feeling that her gender might be one of the few reasons she isn't shot down in the first act. With a male adversary, the criminals in this film would know what to do - shoot them and feed them to the pigs. With a young girl, they scratch their chins, at least for a little while, in hesitation and the hope that she'll just go away.

While the men rule the roost, the women are far from harmless - especially from one another. These are hard women, who have led a hard life, and they are no one to challenge. Desperation can breed the most ruthless acts, and these are people who intend to survive despite the speed riddled desolation that has permeated their tightly knit communities.

Ree Dolly has a deep cynicism for drugs, having personally witnessed the ruin that methamphetamine abuse can cause. Her cynical behavior and dogged relentless investigation is befitting of any hired detective of film noir. She has a deep understanding that her questions and challenges could lead her to a violent death, perhaps one involving being eaten by hogs, yet she understands that it is the only course of action if she is to save her family from homelessness. This is the very definition of heroism and here it is portrayed beautifully; understanding that heroism is committing an action, not without fear, but with great fear, and yet going through with it because you know it is the right thing to do. Heroes are not fearless people. Only fools are fearless. The truly brave are very fearful; but they don't let that fear stop them from doing what needs to be done.

While Winter's Bone steps back from any sort of overt gore, it still manages to be extremely grisly. The climactic scene of the film could have been so over-the-top; yet director Debra Granik exercised a brilliant restraint and created a scene that carries shocking power through context and sound alone. It is a horrible moment, the trauma, savagery, and raw emotion just pulsating from the film without any reliance on gushing blood or flying tissue. This scene is as gruesomely effective as any Saw film might wish to be, and it accomplishes this feat while showing you nearly nothing objectionable at all. It is just brilliant filmmaking.

Winter's Bone is a modern day film noir with an unlikely detective and a fascinating collection of characters. It's portrayal of real people living in a culture that is rarely given any truthful filmic spotlight certainly makes it an extra special film that is absolutely worth seeing. This is what movies are all about.

This is a Day Two Review.

Rating: (5 out of 5):