Winter’s Bone

(2010)

Dir: Debra Granik

John Hawkes and Jennifer Lawrence are pulled over by Garret Dillahunt’s sheriff. Finally at the end of his tether, Hawkes’ Teardrop reaches for his shotgun and lets the approaching lawman know that if he intends to take him in, it will be the last thing any of them do. It is a scene crackling with unspoken tension and intensity, not seen since Javier Bardem entered our nightmares with the infamous coin toss in the Coen’s No Country For Old Men.

Everything about Winter’s Bone is understated, yet it loses none of its visceral worth. It follows Lawrence’s Ree, a 17-year-old girl who, instead of going to school, looks after her younger siblings and invalid mother amidst the impoverished Ozarks. Informed that their absent father is wanted by the law and has put up their house up as his bond, Ree must find her wayward Pa before losing everything.

Visually, Winter’s Bone is a spectacular achievement. The landscape is both beautiful and harrowing, conjuring up images of John Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic The Road, due to its bluish hue.

Lawrence is superb. Like some Western figure of old, trench coated, she tramps tirelessly across this American wasteland, facing beatings and murder amidst this warped patriarchal and criminal community. It’s one of the strongest female performances in years, stony faced and pure. It is accentuated by the support of John Hawkes as her uncle Teardrop. Hawkes does an incredible job of turning his slight, gaunt visage into a menacing presence of Travis Bickle proportions. It seems unlikely that these two will be overlooked by the Academy, and rightly so, but the film as a whole deserves the accolade, with independent director Debra Granik cementing her name as filmmaker with cinematic real vision.

Winter’s Bone is a startling achievement from both cast and crew; a though provoking, aesthetically arresting journey. Film of the year? It’s up there.

**** ¼ / *****

“Bites to the bone.”