Winter's Bone (2010)

Seeing areas of extreme poverty in one of the wealthiest Countries in the world is something of a sucker punch. It is often hard to acknowledge that poverty is not just confined to the hot plains of Africa but is a universal problem. Winter’s Bone is set in one of America’s poorest regions where behaviour is wildly unpredictable and the rules of life are etiquette. 17 year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is forced to find her meth-head father after he skips bail by putting the house on it; if she cannot find him, she, her younger siblings and her invalid mother lose everything. Ree is forced to confront the local people (many of whom share blood ties) in order to find him and is met first with distrust, then hostility, before finally in outright violence. Winter’s Bone is a pretty blunt but equally artistic film. The gothic, ominous scenery inspires dread in the viewer but little wide shots are used; instead, direction focuses more on the characters populating the barren area. The film has dark subject matter but crucially doesn’t languish in its misery (the number of low-budget, off-beat films that fail to do anything but illustrate how misfortunate things are in them). Rather, Winter’s Bone presses on with aplomb with its plotline and wisely runs at only 90-odd minutes so as not to drag on. What makes Winter’s bone stand out is the flawless acting. Jennifer Lawrence is a force of nature, standing unrelenting even against the wrath of a town. John Hawkes is a sinister presence as Ree’s erratic uncle Teardrop with bottomless chasm-like eyes and eruptions of fierce aggression. Both are backed by a tremendous support cast too. In short, Winter’s Bone is an intense ride that bravely refuses to take a bias, revolving instead around the central struggle of the unwavering, unfaltering Ree.