Film: Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone, a new film directed by Debra Granik and adapted from the novel by Daniel Woodrell, has made waves this festival season with its brutal portrayal of a girl's struggle to find her father and save her family in a drug-fuelled backwater world of isolation, secrecy and bone-chilling violence. Granik's astute, unflinching direction and a stunning lead performance from a young actress by the name of Jennifer Lawrence make this film deserving of its praise, finding as it does a glowing hope in the heart of a truly dark and desolate American hell.


Ree Dolly (Lawrence) is a seventeen year old girl who quietly survives in her trailer-cum-cabin in the bleak and cold Ozark Mountains: a wide-spreading Missouri plateau now ravaged by poverty and drugs and where the same genes have been spread thin by years of close breeding. With her father Jessop nowhere to be seen and her mother in a glazed state of mental exile, Ree is left to care for and raise her younger brother and sister. She just about gets by, doing her best to teach them everything she knows - from spelling and cooking to skinning squirrels and shooting a shotgun - but money is short, and only the brief generosity of her neighbours feeds them for another day.

When a sheriff arrives at the house then to tell Ree that her father used the family's house and land as capital against his bail, and that unless he can be found for his approaching court date she and her siblings will be evicted, Ree has little hesitation in setting out to find her drug-cooking daddy amongst the dangerous social terrain. In doing so she seeks the help of those that scare her most, including Jessop's brother, Teardrop (John Hawkes), and local legend Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall). The question of the story is whether Ree can withstand the almighty force of aggression and paranoia working against her to save her family and defy her seemingly doomed fate.

With this story and this film there has been uncovered a host of exciting talent. Granik's direction, helped immensely by the cold and cutting cinematography of Michael McDonough, is exceptionally bold. A recognisable opening sequence finds children playing innocently amongst the squalor of their impoverished life, but quickly we are introduced to Ree, and then hurled into a world of horrifying violence and anger, where fear and aggression, against a backdrop of drug cooking and addiction, sizzle relentlessly. Women are everywhere under the rule and fist of men, and secrets are kept with a burning intensity. Those who step out of line, who break the rules, will be punished, and they will know it too.

Much has been made of the Ozarks as a character unto themselves, and it is a hugely affecting place, all washed out hills and valleys filled with burnt out cars and stray animals, but it is still, overwhelmingly, the occupants of this godforsaken land and the social environment, rather than physical, that provides the story its dark and deadly heart. What Granik does so marvellously is use Ree's character to search for signs of humanity in a world of hellishly selfish and hateful people with little to no soul, where self-preservation rules and where knowing can be deadly. With the continuing assertion by those who meet our heroine that she will not benefit from asking questions, we find the tension and mystery of story build and build, and as Ree pushes on against all odds and logic, as if pulling herself through a swamp, we find revelation in others.

There are recognisable faces amongst the cast, and some fine performances from seasoned American actors. John Hawkes (familiar from the HBO masterpiece Deadwood) as Teardrop gives a fine display of a man for whom redemption is no option, slave as he is to drugs and violence, but to whom Ree, he realises, represents a chance to do good by his family and brother. Elsewhere Garret Dillahunt (also in Deadwood), and Lauren Sweetser (also in, well, nothing...) give fine performances as local sheriff and Ree's friend respectively, but it is Dale Dickey who stands out from the supporting cast in her performance as the terrifying Merab, a weather-beaten but hard-as-nails woman who speaks for the rarely seen Thump, and who is the instigator of some of the film's most breath-snatchingly scary and tense moments, including a memorable scene towards the film's climax that takes place on the water and that will haunt me for some time.


But really there is only one star of this show and that is Jennifer Lawrence, the young actress who, as Ree, instills in the story a courage, a determination, a heart and drive that churns through the scenes with gusto. Ree is a swirling mesh of vulnerability, pride, desperation, focus and anger and she is as believable in her conviction as anything I have seen on screen for some time. It is an astonishing performance from a young actress, the very backbone of this excellent film, and it is in her that we, and the world we have been surrounded by, find hope.

Winter's Bone is expertly done from start to finish, and is a breath of fresh air and hugely different (though it reminded me, in spirit and tone and visuals, of recent films such as Frozen River and White Lightnin'). A dark and dangerous world vividly brought to life where secrets are buried beneath the soil and water like bodies and where only the truly strong and courageous will pierce a hole for light.