On the Couch

DVD REVIEW

Winter’s Bone ****
Directed by:Debra Granik
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Lauren Sweetser, Garret Dillahunt

There are many things Winter’s Bone won’t do for you. Lift your spirits for one thing. Fill your day with mirth or an abiding sense of the underlying goodness of humanity for another.
If, however, you’re looking for the sort of absorbing thriller that will haunt you with hopelessness in the same way Gone Baby Gone did then pull up a sofa and make yourself comfortable.
Nominated for four Oscars – best actress, best supporting actor, best film and best adapted screenplay, it is a gritty, intense affair with little in the way of actor-y showing off and a lot of grunting, glowering and implied terror.
Set in the Ozarks, a rural and desolate part of America, Lawrence plays 17-year old Ree Dolly. With a catatonic mother, an absentee, drug-cooking father and two young siblings, Ree has more responsiblity than any girl of her age ought to.
When her daddy, Jessup, disappears for several weeks, the cops come a-callin’ to make sure he’s going to show up for his court appearance and to drop the bomb that, seeing as he’d put the family’s house and land up for his bail bond, his absence will see the rest of them landless and homeless.
Unfortunately for Ree, finding Daddy isn’t a simple case of calling his mobile or picking him out of a pint in the local boozer. A kind of hillbilly omerta rules in them thar hills – a necessary part of life given the primary industry is cooking up methamphetamine – and everyone from her neighbours on up the drug business food chain tells her that Jessup Dolly can’t be found and shouldn’t be looked for.
An undercurrent of rage undercuts every single scene of Winter’s Bone. From Ree’s snarling uncle, Teardrop, who offers nothing but threats of violence and a great big “shut the hell up” to Ree’s initial plea for help, to her best friend’s boyfriend, every moment of it seems poised to explode into violence. That it actually does so infrequently does little to take the edge off and the constant tension creates a real fear for Ree and her siblings’ plight.
Old fashioned hopsitality being used as a weapon also features heavily. “Polite” conversations are riddled with threats and a coffe cup offered to warm a guest up might just as well be used to bash their brains out.
Adding to this sense of hopelessness is the stark and forlorn world the story inhabits. While the Ozarks might have a harsh, natural beauty to them – a fact not missed in the film’s skilled cinematography – everywhere you look there are signs of decay.
There is literally not a care in this world.
At the centre of Winter’s Bone is Jennifer Lawrence. Far from your typical, crusading heroine, Ree doesn’t want to “fix” her area or even harbour dreams of saving her mother, brother or sister. She just wants to keep them safe and find her father with the minimum of fuss.
Tough in the way that is seldom seen in actors anymore, Lawrence wears the weight of maturity forced on her too early in life like a suit of armour with its very own noose. She’ll face any danger to protect her family but the strength this gives her is almost certain to be her undoing. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow…
It’s a powerful, mature, gritty performance that is matched only by John Hawkes as Teardrop and both were more than deserving of their Oscar nominations.
Singling those two out does a disservice to the rest of the cast however, many of whom were plucked from the area the film was shot in and had never acted before. There is a sort of authenticity that can’t be bought or put on show. It was part of the magic that made City of God such a compelling flick to watch.
While the sense of hopelessness never lets up, neither does the desire to see the story out. Like the fear that grows as you queue for a rollercoaster, you want to get it over with just to see what will happen at the end of the story and how it will affect you. Winter’s Bone does not disappoint. It will stay with you a good while after the credits have rolled.