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Tending to her younger siblings while her mother is paralyzed with depression, teenager Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) attempts to keep the family’s Ozarks log home afloat, dealing with hunger and financial ruin. Learning her deadbeat crank-manufacturing father has jumped bail, Ree is forced to track him down, told her house will be lost unless she can return him to justice. Realizing her only hope to find her dad is to engage her estranged family, Ree travels into the heart of the community, meeting a range of threatening faces determined to keep their criminal activities a secret. Assisting Ree is Teardrop (John Hawkes), her addicted, hot-tempered uncle who knows where to look, but remains reluctant to introduce Ree to such disquieting individuals.

“Winter’s Bone” reminded me of a Coen Brothers feature film without the overt sophistication. Steeped in local vernacular and oozing with an arresting, unnerving environmental presence, Granik builds an astoundingly evocative sense of the surroundings, creating a silent scream for Ree to investigate as she glumly walks the forests and farms of the land. Adapted from the novel by Daniel Woodrell, Granik and co-screenwriter Anne Rosellini preserve a literary tone to the piece, investing in the chilly details of the Ozarks to supply the feature with a frightening air of hostility as Ree encounters a series of bullies, creeps, and relatives. If the film lacks a certain pinch of mesmerizing drama, it makes up the difference with an exquisite lived-in quality. A frightening, yet crookedly poetic realism.

The center of this storm is Jennifer Lawrence as Ree, who gives an outstanding performance of feigned confidence. Essentially keeping together the family through chores and grim neighborly interaction, Ree is a teenager forced to assume the role of an adult. She’s looking for an escape with the Army, but her Southern pride can’t bear to see the family broken up, as the shame would be crippling. Lawrence instills the character with a firm poise and quick tongue, creating a believable veneer of hostility lunging toward most predators. It’s a sensational articulation of a vulnerable child pushed into an unnerving maternal stance, with Lawrence triumphantly shaping Ree as a hardheaded soldier fighting for her home -- the only shred of comfort she has left in her austere life.

Lawrence is paired well with Hawkes, who also stuns with his work here. A wired, wisp of a man, Teardrop is prone to violence, even ballsy enough to threaten the local sheriff, yet Hawkes dulls the roar, sustaining the character’s impulses to internal churn, making the man look even more disturbed.

What I enjoyed most about “Winter’s Bone” is how it opens as a mystery, following Ree as she hunts for her father, yet slowly drifts away from that structure, returning to the characters in the final act. To Ree and Teardrop, life or death isn’t the point, they just require proof to save the farm, and that frosty acceptance makes for a more compelling and sickeningly authentic motion picture. Instead of hysteria, Granik finds a more complicated note of accomplishment and purpose, leaving the feature to swirl in the senses long after it concludes.

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originally posted: 10/16/10 02:56:51
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