film Winter’s Bone (Roadside Attractions; 100
minutes; R; 2010). One of the more impres- sive indie flicks to come out of last January’s Sundance Film Festival, director Debra Granik’s drama concerns the search for a man moviegoers never really see—but, much like the structure of Citizen Kane, brother, do we figure out what he’s all about. For 17-year-old Ree Dolly (played by
Jennifer Lawrence), a typical teen life of Facebook, iTunes and mallratting seems like an elusive daydream, especially since her missing daddy Jessup makes a shady living cooking crank in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, and the law is looking for him. It’s bad enough that Jessup has put up the fam- ily home as collateral for a bailbondsman, and that if he misses an impending court date, there goes the house. And it gets even worse that Ree is the de facto matriarch of the household while her dad is away, since her mama (Valerie Richards) has gone catatonic after years of Jessup’s outlaw behavior, plus Ree has her 12-year-old brother Sonny (Isa- iah Stone) and 6-year-old sis Ashlee (Ashlee Thompson) to care for, too. No, what’s really devastating is that Ree has to find her old man on her lonesome and damn quick, amid a backwoods world of bloodlines, family secrets and drug dealing, although some unexpected assistance comes her way from her mean-ass uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes), a coke addict given to unpredictable shifts of violence.
Granik’s location filming is an atmospheric
asset, as she ably conjures a sense of fear- some dread from the Ozark back country, a creepiness that some moviegoers may equate to Deliverance. (The moviemakers did con- template shooting in upstate New York’s deep woods, long-ago home of the Ward Brothers, before settling on the Missouri locale.) Her shrewd use of sound pays more dividends, like the early scene when Ashlee feeds the fam- ily dog and the distant blasts of a rifle can be heard, or the strange moment when you realize that the siblings are resting atop a waterbed. It’s possible to construe Winter’s Bone as
an offbeat just-say-no movie, as well as a shocking update on the good-ol-boy movie genre; the moonshine stills of Thunder Road have long since given way to the meth labs of Winter’s Bone, although the battle between keeping dark secrets and snitching for the feds remains eternal. Yet it’s also a tale of lost innocence. Ree exhibits a wisdom far beyond her years, as brief vignettes demonstrate how much she has already given up; she looks longingly at her school gymnasium as her ROTC peers march in lockstep, depicting a sense of order that her upside-down world simply cannot accommodate. Young actress Jennifer Lawrence is ter-
rific in this marathon role (her Ree is in every scene), expertly alternating from flinty to vulnerable depending on the truth of the moment. Dale Dickey also scores as Merab,
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the mountain woman who surely knows too much; she takes great glee in spitting out the tangy script’s dialogue (co-written by Granik and Anne Rosellini, both working from Dan- iel Woodrell’s novel) with a merciless venom, such as, “If you’re listenin’, child, you got your answer.” And John Hawkes, perhaps best known for his stint on HBO’s Dead- wood, quietly dazzles as Teardrop, showcas- ing a tremendous depth for what could have been a surface study of menace. When Tear- drop says at the climax, “I know who,” view- ers will instinctively want Granik’s cameras to turn direction and follow this misanthrope to his certain doom—but it’s Ree’s character that we must follow to the end, not him. —BILL DELAPP
Into the woods: Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone.
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COLUMBIA PICTURESPRESENTS AGARY SANCHEZPRODUCTION “THE VIRGINITY HIT” MATT BENNETT ZACK PEARLMAN CO-AMY HOBBY PEXECUTIVERODUCEROWEN BURKE PRODUCEDBYWILL FERRELL ADAM McKAY CHRIS HENCHY PETER PRINCIPATO PAUL YOUNG ANDREW GURLAND & HUCK BOTKO
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