Winter’s Bone

I’m not sure this one ever really got a wide release, and I didn’t know about it when it was making the rounds anyway, so I just now managed to get it through Netflix. Aside from The Kids are Alright it’s the only Academy Award for Best Picture nominee I hadn’t yet seen for last year. I’ve managed to learn very little about the movie itself, and went into it with only a vague notion of the plot; a female protagonist with a mission related to either vengeance or finding her father, something like that. In that sense it seemed a lot like the premise of True Grit, but after watching Winter’s Bone I don’t think I can really make any comparisons between the two.

This movie is depressing. It’s set in some sort of redneck community composed of loosely blood-related, broken people amidst a cloud of drug manufacturing and murder. Our hero Ree, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is informed that her father really needs to show up in court for his trial relating to his chosen profession of crank-cooking, or else their house and land will be taken away for his bond. Ree takes it upon herself to find her estranged father, along with her duties of caring for her young brother and sister and their despondent mother. It seems wherever she turns someone is telling her to leave well-enough alone; apparently her dad got in a bit over his head. Still, she presses on.

Almost all of the characters in this movie are ragged, despairing people in a world of fear. Counter to the modern world of equality, in this corner of the country women are inferior and must do what they are told by men. There are several instances where Ree is not permitted to even speak to the men she seeks to question, instead speaking through their wives as proxies. Her repeated attempts to get information from them often results in getting smacked or worse. She never lets this defeat her though; she’s the strong female lead. Even when facing the patriarchal redneck king-pin she doesn’t waver, and eventually she reaches some sort of success in her mission.

There’s a pretty big theme of family ties, as would be expected in this sort of setting, but it’s not a happy sort of theme at all. I certainly wouldn’t want to be related to these people. Still, it’s not quite as bad as what I saw in Deliverance, and some of the characters redeem themselves a bit later in the film. Like I said though, it’s depressing. There’s definitely not enough of an uplifting conclusion to get an Oscar. It’s well-filmed and well-acted, even on the part of the kids, and it seems more like a real story than the two biopics in the running. Can’t say I enjoyed it very much though.