Winter's Bone (Saturday, June 12, 2010) (50)

There is a recent trend in independent American cinema, a neo-Southern Gothic movement that seems to have come about rather organically over the past few years. Starting with the films of David Gordon Green (especially George Washington and Undertow) and then the brilliant films Ballast, by Lance Hammer, and Shotgun Stories, by Jeff Nichols and also the (TV and film) comedies of Jody Hill, these filmmakers have brought us into our backyard and showed us how ugly and burned out the grass really is on the other side of the fence. Debra Granik's brilliant Winter's Bone continues in this proud tradition of small movies with a big impact showing stuff that we might not know about and probably would prefer to keep that way.

The story is rather simple. Ree Dolly (played brilliantly by Jennifer Lawrence), the eldest child of the Dolly clan is told one day that her father, who had been locked up for cooking meth, signed their house over for the bail bond and is now missing. Unless he shows up at court soon, the house will be taken from them. The Dollys are dirt poor and have to beg for scraps of meat from their slightly-less-poor neighbors. Ree has to go out into the wilderness of Southern Missouri to track down her father, running into his crooked associates along the way.

For me, part of the beauty of the story is the simplicity of the story and how the film is much more about the atmosphere inside the settings that than the plot itself. It takes place in winter, and everything is cold, worn out and dead. There is a beautiful blue-gray tone to everything and basically no bright colors throughout. Granik (who adapted the screenplay from a book by Daniel Woodrell) and cinematographer Michael McDonough do a beautiful job making this place of icy hibernation seem familiar and intimate.

The beautiful look of the film helps to convey a heavy sadness and desperateness. Though Ree is a determined young woman, she has a lot of stuff weighing her down (not only that she is the main caretaker of her younger siblings, but they they are so poor they would not survive being homeless... and her good-for-nothing father's associates seem to want to kill her more than help her). Still, she moves forward, knowing that if she stops to consider her next move or feel sorry for herself she might freeze in place.

Lawrence's performance is breathtaking. She doesn't speak much, but her strength and smarts come through in every shot. She knows that her father is a bad man and she knows there's a good chance he is dead, but she goes out looking for him as seriously and dead-set on her target as John Wayne in the Searchers. She won't be pushed around and won't be told "no".

The supporting cast is also fabulous. John Hawkes (who previously played Sol Star from Deadwood) is wonderful as Ree's loser, criminal uncle who might be the only adult who sorta gives a crap about Ree and her siblings, but doesn't really give that much of a crap. Garret Dillahunt (who was Wolcott in Deadwood) is great as the sheriff who doesn't want to see any harm done to the Dolly kids, but doesn't have much power to stop anything. Dale Dickey plays the wife of one of the big criminals in the area who is one of the nastiest, stone-cold women I've ever seen on screen. Her performance is unflinching and brilliant.

It's interesting that two of the actors come from Deadwood, because that show (at its best in the first two seasons, at least) is very similar to this film. There is a griminess and matter-of-fact darkness that pervades both. The world is a cold, terrible place where horrible people do unthinkable things. It's a ballet of sin and depravity that is beautiful and fantastic.

Stars: 4 of 4