Winter’s Bone (***)
Directed by: Debra Granik
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Dale Dickey, Isaiah Stone,
Ashlee Thompson, Garret Dillahunt
Seen: January 29th 2011
*** Out of ****
Ree Dolly (Lawrence) is a resilient young girl, at 17 she’s the sole
caretaker for her family. Her mother is catatonic, and her brother Sonny
(Stone) and sister Ashlee (Thompson) are still only kids. When Jessup, her dad,
is arrested for cooking methamphetamines, he puts their house up in order to
post bail, but then disappears, leaving Ree in a bit of a predicament; if they
can’t find her dad or prove he’s dead they will lose their home. So Ree goes
hunting for her dad, but information is scarce and threats run rife.
Everyone she comes across warns her against continuing her search for
her dad, and the more she runs around trying to find her dad, the more menacing
things get for her, she even gets assaulted at one point. The first person to
warn her is simply named Teardrop (Hawkes), her uncle, and he goes about his
warning in no gentle way, trying to literally scare Ree out of continuing her
search using physical violence. This trend escalates as the movie goes on until
Ree is assaulted by Merab (Dickey) and her sisters after returning to their
home wanting to speak to the intimidating Thump Milton, of whom everyone is
scared.
As Ree persists in her search, the ones who went against her gradually
realise that she will not relent, and leads her towards her own bit of resolution.
The movie moves at a very slow burning pace, so much so that the first 40
minutes felt twice as long. Somehow it does keep the attention though, straight
into the more eventful but still slowly moving second act. I find a world with so many terribly awful
people a bit far-fetched, even if only in an effort to try and establish
something with such a dark and brooding atmosphere as this movie. Even the polite
and ‘nice’ people are actually just cynical human beings who, apart from one
person in the movie other than Ree, mostly act in their own selfish interest.
At the time of filming, Jennifer Lawrence was only 19 years old, and
her performance is a major point of light in this dark movie. She is brilliant,
and her Academy Award Nomination comes as no surprise. John Hawkes as Teardrop
also deserves his nomination for the Golden Statuette over and over for his
gentle and at times menacing portrayal of a very protective man, even though it
might not seem like it at all times.
Winter’s Bone will definitely not fall in anyone’s taste, as it moves
very slowly and does not necessarily make for a happy or entertaining 100
minutes of viewing. This is a thriller without all the elements regularly
expected with big-budget Hollywood thrillers, apart from the story that is; and
the choice of a 17 year-old female protagonist for a movie this dark also goes
against anything you’d usually expect. I didn’t exactly enjoy Winter’s Bone,
but there is merit in this movie, even if it is only for a small audience’s
tastes.
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