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Friday, July 9, 2010

MOVIE REVIEW
Winter's Bone
When A Cold, Mysterious Chill Runs Through The Midwestern Air



Jennifer Lawrence as Ree in Debra Granik's drama "Winter's Bone", now making its way around the country in movie theaters
Roadside Attractions
                                                                                                                  
by Josh Youngerman/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW THE REEL
Friday, July 9, 2010

"Winter's Bone" is the best American picture I have seen this year.  Debra Granik's film, set in the Ozarks in Missouri, follows in the great tradition of film noir.  Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is basically a jagged detective, determined to uncover the truth about what happened to her dad.  At the center of the film though are the performances from Lawrence and John Hawkes.

The plot revolves around Ree Dolly (Lawrence), a 17-year-old girl living in the Ozarks who has become a mother figure to her brother Sonny (Isaiah Stone) and her sister Ashlee (Ashlee Thompson).  Her mother is seen but never heard.  We are left to assume that there’s a drug-related problem afoot.  Ree’s dad Jessup is a crystal meth dealer/addict who put the family’s house up for his bail.  However, with his trial date looming, he’s nowhere to be found.

That becomes a huge problem when Sheriff Baskin (Garret Dillahunt) shows up at the house and tells Ree that she needs to find him otherwise her family will lose their house.  (Roger Ebert astutely pointed out in his review that the setting in Winter’s Bone is very reminiscent to that of Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road, and I wholeheartedly agree with his observation.)  This land is almost as bare and as desolate as the bleak future in McCarthy’s novel and the 2009 film adapted from it.

Like most film noir, the story follows Ree going from person to person, trying to piece together most of the clues.  She is very scrappy and never loses her cool, even when faced with some of the most terrifying situations.  Ree is often physically beaten yet is always left standing.   The dialogue is rapid fire, some of it drawing from the language found in noir.  Viewers may have a hard time keeping up with some of it.

There are so many instances where Granik could have sunken to cliché and given us a hackneyed and misery-filled diatribe about the Ozarks.  An example of this occurred in Courtney Hunt’s "Frozen River", a fine film in its own right, which spends nearly an hour leading us through the miserable life of the lead woman (played by Melissa Leo).  Not only did some of it feel false, much of it was irrelevant to furthering the story.  It was almost as if Hunt didn’t trust us to figure this out.  There, each scene and every piece of dialogue advanced the plot. 

"Winter’s Bone" benefits from being shot on location in Branson, Missouri, and to Granik's credit a lot of the supporting players are local townsfolk.  They all do fine jobs here, and it is hard to tell which ones are locals and which are actors.  Lauren Sweetser, an actress from Springfield, Missouri who graduated from Missouri State this year, plays Ree’s best friend Gail.  She has moved out to Hollywood and is apparently in talks to appear in a Steven Spielberg production.  Keep an eye out for her.  Garret Dillahunt always seems to find a way to make minor characters really interesting and he does that again here in the role of the Sherriff.  Remember his small but memorable roles from "No Country for Old Men" and "The Road"?  Dale Dickey is terrifying in the role of Merab, a local who makes quite the impression.


I mentioned the central performances at the start and it would be silly for me not to talk about them.  Jennifer Lawrence ("The Burning Plain") gives a star-making performance as Ree, one that will likely garner some Oscar attention.  It is strong work, and talking further about it would only diminish it.  John Hawkes is almost unrecognizable in the role of Teardrop.  He’s every bit as good as Lawrence.  He completely loses himself in the role of a hateful yet fiercely loyal man who is a product of his environment.  These are two of the great performances of the year.

Granik's film is noir down to its bone.  It actually reminded me of the high school noir "Brick", with its use of the heightened language and how faithful it is to these conventions.  Like "Brick", "Winter's Bone" is a film you might have to see two or three times just to unravel what is going on.  I know I am looking forward to seeing it again.

"Winter's Bone" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for some drug material, language and violent content.  The film's running time is one hour and 40 minutes. 

Josh Youngerman is Chicago's Horror Movie Examiner.  He will be contributing film reviews to The Popcorn Reel.  He is on Twitter @Josh_Y.

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