Review of Winter's Bone (2010) by Samantha A — 13 Sep 2012

There are bleak dramas set in the mountains, and then there are bleak dramas set deep in the Ozarks, where meth is pretty much the way to get by for many people. Oh, hi Winter's Bone. You sure are appropriately bleakly named.

Winter's Bone is particularly known for centering on Jennifer Lawrence's breakout performance that turned her into the in-demand talent she's become in the past two years. She carries the whole film on her shoulders, and does so handily as the hardened, stoic Ree Dolly, de facto head of household due to her mother's mental illness and her father's long-term non-presence. You can see why she became such a top pick for The Hunger Games' cast, just watching the early scenes in Winter's Bone in which she teaches her younger siblings how to hunt and prepare meat, their family too staggeringly poor to survive otherwise. Soon enough, emotional callus Ree has to set out in search of her father, who disappeared while out on bail after being caught cooking meth, facing the loss of their little house otherwise. Over the course of her journey from one neighbor to the next, all spread out across their particular area of the Ozarks, Ree faces threatening and unfamiliar faces at every turn, as a conspiracy seems to unfold to cover up just where her father was and what had become of him. John Hawkes of Me and You and Everyone We Know and Eastbound and Down plays Ree's meth-addicted uncle. I didn't recognize anyone else in the cast, but everyone plays their part to a tee, coming off completely naturally - and there's a difference, for sure, between the character of the violent hillbillies of Deliverance and Winter's Bone's own cold-blooded, deeply self-protective Ozarks meth family portrayed here, where everyone's just trying to survive far from civilization, quietly being crushed by their own poverty. Raw despair, fear, and human survival instinct at its roughest are well on display all throughout Winter's Bone.

The cinematography all throughout the film is brilliant, capturing its cold, gray setting perfectly, forcing you to face the seemingly hopeless circumstances with more emotion than its determined protagonist could afford. The music, while typically spare, provided an effective compliment to the film's visuals and helped to elevate the whole of the experience.

That said, Winter's Bone isn't without its flaws. Empathetic characters are few and far between in this deeply despairing setting. Human beings like those portrayed in this film certainly do exist, living here in America with just as much suffering, and that in itself is something over which to feel tremendous woe. In many ways, that's the most important thing about Winter's Bone - that it shines a light on such a dark, dank corner of the American population and culture. That there are people who struggle this much to survive and more in our proud nation, and whose lives depend on cooking meth, which in turn destroys lives. But while it accomplishes the raising of this awareness in spades, Winter's Bone can kind of drag on at times, as much of the film focuses on Ree heading from one house to another and engaging in tense exchanges with her family's neighbors that eventually start to feel slightly redundant. In this community, she's a suddenly unwelcome figure, and there's an understated hint of implied violence - largely restrained - toward her at all times as the Dollys' neighbors try to conceal the truth about Ree's father, Jessup. Likewise, the ending largely feels inevitable and expected by the time it finally arrives, more than anything else. It doesn't pack as much of a punch as it could have as a result, but I'm not sure I could think of a better ending for it, either. It ends the way it has to end.

Despite these flaws, Winter's Bone is a raw, chilling, powerful little piece of cinema that rightly catapulted Jennifer Lawrence to stardom, and told a story with experiencing, focused on a part of American life of which we should all be far more aware. Too many of us live complacent in our comfort, complaining perpetually about the government, unaware of what the face of true American suffering looks like, and unwilling to have the necessary discussions to begin addressing said suffering. Unfortunately, far too many of us are lacking in empathy and would rather engage in senseless victim-blaming. It's unfortunate how politicized empathy has ultimately become in recent years - Winter's Bone is an appropriate and inevitably heartbreaking portrait of part of America that continues to fall through the cracks.