Winters Bone

Posted In: The Kids Are All Right

Ayana Vonarx says...

"Winter's Bone" is set in the Ozarks during a hard winter for a 17 year old girl taking care of her dirt poor family. Her mother has had a nervous breakdown, and her father has jumped bail for charges of making methamphetamine. The 17 year old, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), has had to grow up fast, and take on parenting her two younger siblings.They are living on the edge - almost starving - when she learns from the local bail bondsman that her father put a lien on their home.The sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) informs her that her father, Jessup, has not shown up for his scheduled court appearance, and she only has a week to find him.Ree feels the overwhelming responsibility of making sure the family can keep the land and home, their only asset and place to live. She steels her spirit and is determined to keep the house and property.



Ree sets out to find her father, knowing her life could be in danger as well.She has many confrontations, and a physical beating by the local farmers to keep her off her father's trail. The worst thing in the community is to be a "snitch". She hears rumors that her dad was killed in a methamphetamine brewing session that went wrong. She does not believe it, but continues to confront her father's pals in his drugged life.Her Uncle, Teardrop (John Hawkes) helps her in a round-about way, as well as a crusty old hag named Merab (Dale Dickey) who knows more than she lets on. The whole community is covering up for the illegal drugs and bad habits of their "clan". The ties that bind are revealed through their squalid, near Neanderthal living conditions. The community reminded me of junkyard dogs all fighting for a bone, but bonded by blood and experience.



Slowly clues add up for Jessup's fate and Ree's realization she has to carry the full responsibility of family.



The movie is rough and tender, a fantastic story of strength when life is cold and cruel. "Winter's Bone" is fabulous in all facets, the noir cinematography

and location all combine synergy with a great story and fantastic acting by the entire cast.

Posted on October 25, 2011

Denisha Faville says...

This year's winner for the coveted Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival was a little indie called WINTER'S BONE. It finally made it to Cherrydale Cinemas this week, and I have to say that all of the hype surrounding this film is justified. It is one of the best films of the year.



It concerns a young girl, Ree Dolly, who lives deep within the Ozark Mountains. Day after day, she single-handedly takes care of her younger brother and sister, as well as her ill mother. On many occasions, she has to hunt for food in order to be able to feed her family. Ever so often, the neighbors help by giving the family leftovers from the night before. It is clear that this family is struggling, and that Ree is doing all that she can to provide.



When the sheriff shows up at her doorstep and informs her that her father, a fugitive and a crystal meth dealer, has put her house up for bail bond, she has to race against all odds to find him. Everything is at stake, and so Ree sets out on a dangerous journey in order to save her family. From the time that Ree begins her journey into darkness until the shocking finale, we are driven to the edge of our seats. Not once will you take your eyes off of the screen. There are times when you want to look away, but you can't and you won't.



The strength of this film lies in its authenticity. Most of the time, you feels as if you are watching a documentary feature, peering into the lives of these people. Everything from the performances, to the setting, to the minimalist score provides an eerie realism to the final product.



Newcomer Jennifer Lawrence plays the part of Ree Dolly, and I should tell you that this performance is going to make her a star, possibly earn her a few nominations at awards ceremonies. She shows a confidence that many actresses lack these days. I'd put her in the same category as Ellen Page. It's a magical thing when the audience forgets that they are simply watching a performance. Ree becomes real to us because of Jennifer Lawrence's abilities as an actress.



The same has to be said for the rest of the cast. I'm not sure how many of the actors had any experience prior to making this film, but they all shine in their respective roles. The direction from Debra Granik is simple and to the point. That's not to say that it lacks elegance, it only adds to the neo-realist vibe that the film sends out. The score is minimal, yet haunting. The cinematography is breathtaking. The cast and crew take us places that we have never been before to tell us a story that we will never forget.



The film was adapted from the novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell.

Posted on October 26, 2011

Virgina Pooschke says...

As crack cocaine is to inner cities and alcohol is to Indian reservations, so methamphetamine is devastating rural white communities across the United States. WINTER'S BONE, set in the remote Ozark Mountains, hauntingly depicts this plague. The story focuses on 17-year-old Ree Dolly, whose father has disappeared after putting up the family home as bail collateral. Unless she can find him, Ree and her younger brother and sister will be without a roof over their heads.



Ree's father is a "cooker" and her mother has been driven into a catatonic state. Ree is on her own in the hostile, clannish, and male-dominated community where she stumbles from trailer to trailer in her frantic search. Crank's ravages are everywhere, in the gaunt and grim faces, the harsh and sudden violence, the cruelty and hopelessness. Her father's only brother, Teardrop (flawlessly played by John Hawkes), holds a spoonful of the white powder out to her and asks, "Gotten the taste for it yet?" "Not yet," she recoils.



Aside from the down-home soundtrack, Winter's Bone is not easy to watch. Its gritty realism never lets up. The characters look like they climbed from Dorothea Lange's Depression and Dust Bowl images, only with a touch of meth-induced paranoia added to the hunger and despair. The dialogue is sparse, and not once in 100 minutes do we hear laughter or feel much hope for Ree's future. What makes it all bearable is the strength and determination of Ree, movingly played by 19-year-old Jennifer Lawrence.



Winter's Bone is winning awards and earning rave reviews. The acclaim is well deserved. To achieve authenticity, director and co-writer Debra Granik and her team spent two years immersing themselves in the local community. Ree's younger sister is even played by a child who lives in the main house in which the movie is set. The film's power makes me want to see Granik's 2005 debut film, "Down to the Bone," another award winner focused on drug addiction and featuring a strong female lead.

Posted on October 26, 2011

Lieselotte Quadnau says...

Adapted from the novel by Daniel Woodrell, WINTER'S BONE immediately sparked comparisons to last year's Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker.Both films received limited runtime in theaters.But I must say this is by far the superior movie in just about every aspect imaginable, unless you count overwrought machoism, slanted anti-war sentiments, and explosions as a category.Don't get me wrong, The Hurt Locker was a decent film for what it was.But it won't leave the kind of lasting impression like this story will.



When you hear the word "backwoods", you might get the immediate impression of inbred, buck-toothed hillbillies wearing overalls and drinking moonshine.This story doesn't succumb to exploiting certain exaggerated stereotypes just to grab your attention.But these characters are definitely a little rough around the edges, to say the least.



Filmed in the Ozarks of Missouri, this is a simple but riveting dramatic tale about family, danger, and perseverance.Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17-year-old girl forced to grow up way too fast.With her mother desperately ailing and her father somewhere hiding from the law, she struggles to support her younger brother and sister.To make matters worse, a bail bondsman notifies her that her dad put up their home as his bail bond, then skipped out on court.In order to track her father down, Ree is forced to enter a seedy, violent realm of paranoid drug pushers and users.Many of them happen to be distant family members.Family ties or not, none of them are too anxious to help her out.The risks and desperation mount as she inches closer to the truth.



The best part of this film is the character development and the acting.It is so refreshing to see the young cast perform their roles with such controlled precision.Especially Lawrence.She puts many established Hollywood actors to shame here, I can't wait to see more of her work.



WINTER'S BONE is slow paced, and might not appeal to many casual movie goers.But it does have some moments of heightened tension that will leave you holding your breath.It explores a certain drug culture and meager lifestyle that is rarely touched upon in movies.Plus it makes some poignant, thought-provoking points about family devotion and the human spirit.



It also was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.I doubt there will be a better film than this all year.Brilliant filmmaking.

Posted on October 27, 2011

Adele Mathson says...

This is an unusual story of a teenage girl who must care for her depressed mother and younger siblings after her dad supposedly dies.Problem: the bail bonds guy and police don't believe he is dead, so she has to try to find him and prove whether he is alive or dead.If he is still alive, there is another problem: their house will be seized and they will be left to die in the cold hills of Missouri, where life is rough and the citizens are unforgiving.



Great performances by Jennifer Lawrence and the others.Good soundtrack and foreboding locations too.

Posted on October 27, 2011

Cora Heggins says...

"Winter's Bone," adapted from the novel by Daniel Woodrell, is a stark, raw, and gritty masterpiece of storytelling, a thoroughly absorbing detective story that goes above and beyond the reliable conventions of mystery solving. It's a quiet, harsh, and unflinching societal drama set deep within the Ozarks, a world of cold forest lands, small houses that look slopped together from spare parts, cars perpetually hoisted on cinderblocks, and distrustful mountainfolk who all seem to be related to some degree. In these desolate backlands, we find seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), who has taken her mother's place as a homemaker for her younger brother and sister. Her mother is still there, but only in body; her mind is somewhere off the beaten path, having strayed after an emotional trauma she could never come to terms with.



Ree's father, Jessup, was arrested for cooking meth, which seems to be what most people do around these parts. Why? It certainly can't be for the money, considering the abject poverty in which some of them live. Whatever the case, Ree learns from the local sheriff that her father skipped bail and has gone missing. Worse yet, he put his own house up as a way to meet his bond, apparently having no other assets at his disposal. He now has one week to turn himself in. If he doesn't, Ree and her family will be thrown out of the house. Ree, with remarkable understated determination, vows that she will find him. Thus begins a door-to-door manhunt, Ree visiting the homes of Jessup's known associates. It's a journey that will prove more dangerous than it may first seem; these people are just as wary of their own kind as they are of outsiders, perhaps even more so. Family means nothing. It's all about survival.



Ree definitely knows how to survive. She does the best she can with her siblings - feeding them, clothing them, educating them, showing them how to hunt and prepare food with what little she has to work with, including welfare and the occasional helping hand from neighbors. She keeps them as happy as she can, and indeed, they seem unaware of how disadvantaged they truly are. If they are aware of it, then they don't seem all that bothered by it, not as long as they have Ree to keep them in line. So selfless is this young woman that one can't help but wonder where she learned it from. Certainly not from her mother, who can do little more than stare vacantly into the distance, thinking whatever she thinks. I guess some of us are naturally inclined to be self sufficient. Maybe we need more people like her in our lives, if not for friendship, then just for the satisfaction of aspiring to be like her.



As she journeys forward, she crosses paths with her uncle, Teardrop (John Hawkes), a meth dealer who may or may not have something to do with Jessup's disappearance. He's intimidating and mysterious, distrustful and bitter, scarred and hopeless - simultaneously Ree's greatest obstacle and greatest ally in getting to the bottom of things. Hawkes, in the tradition of great actors like Al Pacino and Marlon Brando and even contemporary figures like Johnny Depp and Viggo Mortensen, completely disappears into his role, turning out a flawless balancing act between fearsome and forlorn. Teardrop is a hardened man who I seriously doubt has ever been happy, or at the very least, contented; the words themselves may be foreign concepts to him. Watching him as he progresses with Ree, I was torn between being frightened of him and feeling very sorry.



Jennifer Lawrence, at just nineteen years old, gives one of the year's best performances, and I would be greatly disappointed if she weren't recognized with an Oscar nomination. The determination she brings to her character shows not the slightest trace of conventional Hollywood heroism; she doesn't make herself into a larger-than-life caricature of the strong willed young woman, someone who will sermonize endlessly and make a spectacle of herself. She's an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation. She does what she does not to prove a point, but merely because she has no other choice. Rarely do you see films with characters so convincing, so engaging, so in command of dialogue and emotion.



The film's pacing is superb. The final thirty minutes alone build the kind of suspense that would rival even the best of Alfred Hitchcock's films, Ree's journey having taken a violent turn. It all builds up to a late night boat ride through a swamp, and while I won't reveal what happens, I will say that the scene is frightening in a way that most horror movies could only hope to be. That it's so terrifying is a testament to Anne Rosellini and Debra Granik (the director), who wrote the screenplay in such a way that we can actually feel something for the characters. Without that emotional connection, there would be little for the audience to react to; the film would be a sequence of events, and nothing more. "Winter's Bone" is a bleak, absorbing, resonant, tightly wound treasure of a film, one of the best I've seen this year.

Posted on October 28, 2011

Aracelis Herbig says...

WINTER'S BONE is as quiet and insidious as a stem cell carcinoma. Based on the successful novel by author Daniel Woodrell who explains the choice of title explain at the back of his book: "The `Winter's' part of the title is obvious, and the `Bone' part comes from slang. It can be stated wryly, sarcastically, even tenderly, when throwing a sop to someone, `Oh, give him a bone.' In this case, it is winter itself giving a gift, a bone, to Ree Dolly. The season knows she has earned it, and the term suggests the double-edged aspect of the gesture and is suited to the novel,"writer Anne Rosellini and writer/director Debra Granik have adapted this story for film and in doing so have presented one of the finest artistic successes of the year.



The setting is contemporary Missouri Ozarks where people barely survive, especially during the winter.Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence in a stunningly sophisticatedperformance) is seventeen years old, living in a shack with her clinically depressed mother and her brother and sister: her father Jessup is missing, having been arrested for his dealings in making Crank (crystal meth) - the only source of income for many of the folk in the area, folk who also are users - and posted bail using his house and land as collateral.Ree has a tough time as the only responsible person for her family and when the local sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) visits to inform Ree that Jessup has skipped town and that if he doesn't show up for his court date, Ree's home and land will be absconded, Ree is devastated.Ree seeks advice from her many relatives who adamantly refuse to help her out of fear of discovery of involvement in the drug business: Ree sets out to find her father.She turns to every member of her family (it would seem that most everyone in this pitiful area is blood) she is turned down for help - especially from her father's brother Teardrop (John Hawkes) who hesitantly warns her that her father is dead.She finally gains some assistance through her perseverance only to discover that that Jessup is dead and she is forced to dredge his body from the river to cut off his hands to prove to the court that her father is dead and the threat of evacuation is nullified.



The casting of this film is a little miracle: down to the smallest role each actor is exactly right in creating the sullen and desperate atmosphere of this story.There are rare moments when the tale is not grim, moments such as the gathering of banjo and guitar players in a Pickin' Session to accompanying the singing of a Marideth Sisco.The cinematography by Michael McDonoughand the musical choices made by Dickon Hinchliffe recreate the desolation of this pitiful community of people living on the edge in the Ozarks.But towering above all of this is the performance by Jennifer Lawrence who will undoubtedly now rise to prominence. Grady Harp, October 10

Posted on October 29, 2011

Gemma Varnum says...

... in poverty-stricken rural white America, any more than in the black ghettoes of Detroit, or the brown barrios of Miami. And what do those diverse places share? Drugs! Pot-growing, methamphetamine cooking, crack and crank, drug selling, attended with desperation and violence. Drug addiction is not just a big city problem, and in fact it's not a problem limited to the outcasts, misfits, deadbeats, and indocumentados. There are plenty of big shot and fat cat users whose buying power fuels the gang wars of Mexico and funds the Taliban. And the 'moral turpitude' of the narcotics business isn't any more characteristic of liberals than of reactionaries, Blue States than Red, atheists than fundamentalists. In fact, statistics suggest that the fastest growing drug problem in the USA is meth addiction in socially conservative small towns in parts of the country that are supposed to be apple-pie wholesome and old-fashioned in values, towns where your image of the American Dream would include a white steepled church.



"Winter's Bone" is about an impoverished 'community' in the Missouri Ozarks, where all the men are up to their tailbones in drugs not only using them but 'cooking' them. Even those on the the "other team" -- the sheriff, the bail bondsmen, etc. -- in a sense depend on drugs indirectly, and exhibit the same angry out-for-themselves immorality. Jessup Dolly, a tough customer even by the standards of his hard-bitten hill-folk clan, has disappeared just a few days before his scheduled trial for drug production. The problem is that he posted bail using the title to his shabby house and the scrub forest lot around it. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Ree, is informed that if Jessup skips his court appointment, the family will be evicted from their home. Ree's mother is already suffering a psychotic withdrawal, and there are two younger children in Ree's care as well. Ree goes looking for her father, despite the warnings of her closest kin and neighbors that finding him will be mortally dangerous. Ree turns out to be determined, intrepid, tough -- a "Dolly bred and buttered" as she says. What she finds eventually is not pleasant.



But "Winter's Bone" is not just about drug violence and a brave girl solving a mystery. Really it's more about concepts of loyalty, honor, and family cohesiveness. Nearly everyone in Ree's world is related to her by blood, and "blood" is supposed to be thicker than money or law. Ree learns that it isn't, and then again it is. "Honor" in her language means absolute solidarity against all outsiders. Ree's survival depends on the degree to which her neighbors are certain that she's "a girl who won't tell nothing to nobody."



Actress Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree Dolly perfectly. John Hawkes is equally convincing as Jessup's fierce, scrawny older brother. Honestly, everyone in the cast of this film is "real" in his or her role. There's not a fleck of sentimentality or caricature in their performances. Good dialogue, good camera work, good editing produce a film that deserved the "Best Picture" award it won at the 2010 Sundance Festival.



That's well and good, but my own 5-star enthusiasm for this film results from its realism as a fictional documentary of one portion of the America "we" live in. Some of the details of the film are gristly in the extreme, yet not implausible. Life does get ugly when lives are not so precious in themselves. This film doesn't exaggerate. The "Dollys" may not be average mainstream Americans but they are not disappearingly uncommon either. "Winter's Bone" is a gripping dramatic experience, but it's also a window into a painful sector of American society.

Posted on October 29, 2011

Cher Kietzer says...

In American movies, we don't often see how we really live, but you will in Winter's Bone, and you don't need to have had a rough childhood in the back woods for this movie to make you feel the grittiness and glory of life -- or for you to know, like you would know how to find your bed in the dark, that this is probably the best movie you will see this year. And maybe longer.



Winter's Bone, directed by Debra Granik, was adapted from a novel by Daniel Woodrell. It was made in the Ozarks, often in the homes of the people who live there. Shot digitally on a mingy budget, it could pass for state-of-the-art Hollywood --- just raw and unvarnished, like Hollywood never is.



The story is simple; this is a straightforward thriller. Ree's father, Jessup Dolly, was busted a while back for cooking methamphetamine. To make bond, he put up his family's house and 300 acres of virgin timber. Now his court date is a week away --- and he's nowhere to be found. The local lawman drives out to warn Ree that the Dollys are in danger of losing their home.



Ree's mother has suffered a breakdown and is of no help, either in caring for her children or finding her husband. That puts her daughter --- already burdened by the need to look after her younger brother and sister --- on a mission. And don't think for a minute she'll quit, even though her quest is a walk on a knife edge; she can't turn in her father, all she can do is ask for help in finding him so she can talk to him. And the only people who can help her? His relatives. Some of them make the most addictive drug on the planet. All of them don't understand why she can't remember she's a Dolly --- "bred and buttered," as she says --- and just stop. As they say, "Talking just causes witnesses."



In its dramatic revelations, its dark surprises, and its no-nonsense portrayal of The Way We Are, the film feels almost like a Greek tragedy --- or an American Western.



There's a good reason this film won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Films and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance last winter, and why critic after critic is reaching deep into the superlatives lexicon to praise it as "the American film of the year" -- every detail is right. Jenny Lawrence, who plays Ree, comes from Tennessee. John Hawkes, last seen in Deadwood, is Jessup's brother; he's also from the region and looks so much like a member of The Band that it's eerie. Much of the cast is local and non-professional --- and, no offense, but they look like people who might make crank, who could scare you at traffic lights with a sidelong glance, who would quiet you with "I already told you to shut up with my mouth" and let their hands do the talking after that.



I've never seen a movie that's both painful to watch and impossible to turn away from. The scene with the squirrel. Ree's desperate attempt to convince an Army recruiter -- who's played by an Army recruiter -- to let her enlist for five years so she can collect the government's $40,000 bonus. And a climax so remarkable, so distant from anything you know as reality, that you'll never forget it.

Posted on October 30, 2011

Tiffiny Westbury says...

Imagine if you relatives, close and distant, where to settle within the proximity to each other, did drugs to the point of excess, made and sold Methamphetamine, used firearms in treating any nagging conflict between each other, and still were relatively poor. Winter's Bone contains many characters that are conflicted by the above conditions, and as far as the film lacks any observable redeemable condition. They all are family, but in their midst it would be better to be a stranger, or best never to come in contact.



Winter's Bone centers on Ree Dolly who in the absence of her father and the sickness of her mother, has to keep after her little sister and brother. Life is not easy as Ree's family lacks many of the basic necessities of life that her family and neighbors benefit from, such as food and hay for the horses. Her neighbor always pitches in to help her out with such basic needs, but isn't without her own intrusiveness about the affairs of the family. Despite the ardous conditions of life on the field, they live contently until an incident threatens to alter matters for the worst. It seems that their father who has been arrested multiple times for his illegal production and utilizing of Methamphetamine has put the house on bail and failed to appear for his hearing. If the family does not find him in time, they will lose their property. Ree sets out to find her father before they are thrown out of their house; a task she must be complete in less than a week.



Finding her father should not be the issue as the people he associates himself are fellow family members, but these people are not willing to reveal anything as it may be used against them in a legal context. Their unwillingness infuriates Ree as these are not only the only sources she can trace toward her father, but also because many of these people are close relatives of her father, such as Teardrop who is his brother. The family members are so coldly removed from each other that Ree must remember them that they are family, and that this must count for some level of trust. The Dolly family are so emotionally distant that a distasteful or insulting act by one member could entice close relatives to physically harm him. Everyone of may have inherited the surname, but their safety lies in their actions. This families safety and freedom does not lie in the hand of the Police, considering the amount of illegal activities they commit, but in the hands of the more powerful members of the family. No one dares to cross paths with the "Chief" of the Dolly family, as his large army of minions has enough power to crush any member of the family that he wishes. The Dolly family is not unlike the Mafia where one person rules, the Don, and the inferior men are continuously trying to ascend in rank. Unlike the Mob , however, alarge majority of the Dolly family are forever condemned to remain inferior. The treatment of the woman is deplorable as it is implied that their only concerns should be within the kitchen and the bedroom.



Jeniffer Lawrence's portrayal of Ree is central to the film's success as her presence makes the title character seem so empowered and determined to solve this mystery. She stares in the camera with such confidence that the idea that she has raised herself and her siblings seems convincing; her demeanor also suggests that her mother's sickness is nothing new but it has been an ongoing condition. Lawrence is especially brilliant in somevery masculine moments of the film, such as a scene involving skinning of squirrels and teaching her siblings in using a rifle. Much credit is also due to Director/screenwriter Debra Granik who shows Ree's inability to solve this case on her alone, and eventual surrender in the face of all the hardship that the Police and her family hurl in her direction. Granik has no intent to show Ree as a cowardly character, rather suggesting that without her family's help she is quite helpless and must concede defeat.



This is a deftly created product where the insubstantial plot succeeds in seeming much more complex than it turns out to be. Winter's Bone owes its success to its approach which familiarizes the audience with few admirable characters who trying to accomplish this not so easy task among the numerous villainous family members who are willing to do anything to prevent Ree from finding her father. The film is so captivating in its unique mood and atmosphere that its virtually nonexistent plot is only recognized near the conclusion. As unbelievably odd and unlikely as the ending of the film may be, its bittersweet nature is as Dolly as Granik could have achieved.

Posted on November 3, 2011