Review of Winter's Bone (2010) by Roger C — 23 Apr 2013

After seeing Jennifer Lawrence's pretty much fantastic performance in Silver Linings Playbook, I decided to see what else the Academy saw in her along with The Hunger Games. I'd never heard of Winter's Bone before watching it, but I can tell you that despite its unexpectedly short duration (99 minutes), I was fully enthralled by the way that director Debra Granik was able to take what is undoubtedly one of the more depressing landscapes I could imagine and create something wonderful.

Much like any of the output of Darren Aronofsky, I would classify Winter's Bone as a "mood movie" - you simply don't want to watch this one if you're not ready for a pummeling. Jennifer Lawrence is 17 years old, raising two young siblings and a catatonic mother on her own. As if that wasn't dreary enough, Granik's portrayal of the downtrodden Missouri Ozarks makes you think at times that you might have accidentally turned on The Road. The sun never shines, and even if it did, the combination of beat-up homes, rusted-out cars, and gruff-looking xenophobic locals are more than enough to take your mood from good to overcast in a hurry.

That said, it is masterful in its execution, and it takes what would seem to be an oddly anticlimactic plot line and creates a moving experience that will make you finish out your day thankful for the fact that your life is actually not so bad when you've got this kind of perspective.

4/5.