WINTER’S BONE

US, 2009, 100 minutes, Colour.
Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes.
Directed by Debra Granik)

A fine and serious drama, chilling in many ways, and demanding in terms of watching what is, for most audiences, an unfamiliar American mountain backblocks society.

The setting is Missouri, the Ozarks. The focus is on 17 year old Ree who is managing to bring up her younger brother and sister and care for her mentally disturbed mother. She has to find her drug-dealing father or the banks will foreclose and she and the family will lose their house with nowhere to go – despite the fact that there has been quite some inbreeding in the mountains and so many of the neighbours are cousins or related.

The film stays focused on Ree, a capable young girl despite the difficulties and her lack of experience. Her quest for her father takes her to her uncle, an addict, who warns her off but who does step in finally to support her. The other cousins are far tougher and won’t reveal what has happened to her father though she suspects he has been killed. In the meantime, the local sheriff is demanding that the father turn up to court or else the house will be handed over. The sheriff is rather cowardly at heart as is shown in a later sequence, but he lives in a tough society that is anti the law.

The scenes with some of the relatives are quite brutal and frightening, especially the harsh and cruel behaviour of some of the women. While they have television in the Ozarks, the society is inward-looking, meets in bars for drinking and singing, makes money from illicit drug production (the successors to moonshine) and, despite the money they seem to make, live in fairly ugly, sometimes squalid conditions.

And the look of the film matches the storytelling. The wintry, cold and bleak lack of colour corresponds to people’s grim lives. Ree has a plan to join the army to get a financial grant to support the family but even that is impossible for her.

There are some moments of give towards the end, some expressions of emotion and support for Ree despite the animosity and even physical violence towards her.

Audiences will be most impressed by Jennifer Lawrence’s assured performance as Ree. We do believe that she is Ree and we believe all that she is trying to do for her family. The supporting cast certainly looks the part, gnarled, sometimes frazzled, often menacing.

While the families would not necessarily think of themselves as deprived, they are, deprived not only of material goods, but of a broader and kinder social awareness beyond survival and family close-knittedness.

Winner of the main award at the Sundance Festival, 2010.

1. All the acclaim, awards, Oscar nominations?

2. The film based on a novel, adapted, the title? The re-creation of the period, the season? A world in itself?

3. The backblocks of the Ozarks, Missouri? Harsh and landscapes, winter? The town? The bigger centres, the school, the army recruiting centre? The musical score? The country and western songs? The local ballads?

4. The farms, properties, cattle, horses, crops?

5. Drug cultivation, use, distribution? The role of the law?

6. The close-knit community, families, bonds and enmities, relying on each other, the code of silence, the controls?

7. Ree’s story, the strength of Jennifer Lawrence’s presence and performance, the audience entering into her world, and through her?

8. Age, 17, her father and his drug work, in prison, gone, mortgaging the house against his appearance in court? The mother ill, the photos, Ree’s tenderness? Two younger children, cooking, cleaning, educating them? Her thinking of joining the army, the money grant? The neighbor, allowing the horse agistment, bringing the food? Her philosophy of never asking for what should be given?

9. The visit of the law, hostility, the situation about her father, about the house? Her decision to find her father? Visiting the relations, the men and women, some help, suspicions? Teardrop and his relationship with his brother, drug taking, his wife?

10. Connie, her child, friendship, kindness, the visits, a sounding board for Ree?

11. The hostile woman and her brutality, not allowing Ree to see the grandfather? Her later physical violence?

12. The portrait of the children, playing on the trampoline, depending on Ree, playing, the meals? The offer of the neighbor to take the boy in? Ree and her staunch refusal?

13. The songs, the social gatherings, the nature of the ballads, the people listen, the singer, the enjoyment of the music?

14. The visit to the recruiting centre, her hopes, the kind officer, his explanations and recommendations and her following them?

15. Teardrop, his character, his life, the drugs, his wife, initially not helping Ree? His decision to stand up for her, against the relatives, knowing the issues about drugs and information to the police, his brother’s death?

16. Ree going to the cattle sales, the contact, the grandfather, taken by the family, the violence? Teardrop’s arrival, the confrontation, the codes of the family, his taking Ree away, her injuries?

17. The police, on the road, Teardrop and his gun, the confrontation, Ree in the car, the policeman’s later comment about not shooting? Policeman knowing about Ree’s father, informant?

18. Ree and her being taken by the harsh woman into the woods, the burial place of her father, sawing his bones? Giving them to the police, saying they were thrown onto the front of the house?

19. The evidence of her father’s death, security, a future?