Young Ree has to look after her brother, sister, and near cataonic mother in the rough terraine of the Mussouri mountains. When her father jumps bail, having left their home for the capital, she needs to find him before they are all left out in the cold.
Winter’s Bone is a near-perfect film. The central character is a 17-year-old girl who needs to find her bail-jumping father in order to keep her family home. Parallels with True Grit have just occurred to me, and I am told Jim is covering that as I type.In all the film, there was only one thing that made me feel critical (I won't mention what it was as it might spoil it for you), and considering I habitually watch films scouring for imperfections/ ‘reality checks’, that is very good. Also, it was slightly too long; I felt it was the end long before it actually was, so it dragged a bit before the conclusion wrapped it up.
Things that I liked about it were the consistency and believability of the scene and the characters, the strange woodland community and its society laws. I liked that most scenes had no exposition so you had to pay attention to keep up.
I liked the nice army careers officer, who gave us an anchor for an idealised morality to let us gauge just how hostile and awkward the woodland dealings were. I liked seeing the odd background characters that gave the setting with their unattractive faces, and I liked seeing perfect nail varnish on a dirty dealer.
The atmosphere was gritty and wary and on-edge, a bit like The Road but we didn’t come out feeling so low. It did take me a few minutes to feel like talking though, so it did have an emotional impact. I would recommend this film to people who enjoy non-mainstream films.
5 Stars
Watching Winter's Bone only a week after True Grit brings to mind the interesting parallels between the two films. Both are set in desolate landscapes and townships with the stink of poverty hanging over them. Both feature amazingly competent and brave heroines who have, in their fathers' absence and their mothers' inability, become heads of their households. Both are carrying out missions related to their fathers, and both are befriended (if that is the word) and in parts assisted by dangerous older men.
There is a lot of the western about Winter's Bone in the pacing as well. It is slow and steady, with an all-pervasive sense of fear, unease and dread. It is shot with a wonderful bleached quality, and the location is absolutely real,a living, watching, decaying place. Winter's Bone brings into solid existence a world so far from my own comforting materialist middle-class bubble it might as well be on Mars and makes it instantly 'knowable'.
The acting is superb, and with as much low-key brilliance as everything else.
The extended 'family' who make up Ree's world are akin to pack animals. Haunted, weather worn, grizzled and grim. They are laconic and soft spoken, as if they fear that someone is always listening. They are also canny, cunning and mean, and any time they are on screen you feel that fear in the pit of your stomach that something terrible could happen at any moment.
There is a massive amount to say about this film, far more than I can fit into a review. It works on the level of social commentary on crime, drug use and poverty, parable, explorations of values and hidden 'codes of honour', a straight-out narrative about bravery and strength, an analysis of what it means to be family and what familial love really is. I could easily write an essay on it.
This is what you need to know: Jennifer Lawrence is awesome, Debra Granik knows how to direct actors like crazy, and you should never go asking questions to people who don't want to answer.
4/5
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