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I read the novel Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell and felt like I could smell the mountain air, see the grey landscape and knew every psychological problem and feeling of main heroine Ree Dolly. In a novel that’s relatively short, with simple vocabulary but tense and disturbing atmosphere, Woodrell recreated an entire section of the country that most people never even give a second thought. It was not a pretty sight. I thought that a film adaptation would be doomed to fail. It couldn’t possibly find an actress to accurately play Ree, it wouldn’t capture the way that time seems to not exist in the Ozarks. Too much of the subtle minutia of the unwritten laws and hermetically sealed societies couldn’t possibly be translated properly. I was dead wrong.
Maybe it’s because the movie was made with a small budget and by a woman that it succeeded so strongly. Debra Granik, writer-director, never condescends to her characters or sentimentalizes their predicaments. In a style that brings to mind a journalistic distance and nonpartisan documentation, Granik presents this world, complete with the laws that have governed this world without the intervention of the outside, as it is. In a storyline that features a main character who isn’t wise beyond her years but forced to fake like she is, the most depressing thing is probably the proof that poverty is its own kind of generational violence (as if any were truly needed). And this is a film about methamphetamine addiction, cruel violence, isolation and one girl who’s a solid and stubborn presence throughout.
Jennifer Lawrence truly deserved her Oscar nomination for her lived-in performance. She doesn’t emote much, preferring to showcase to the world that has hardened her a steely-eyed squint and not much more. But her body language is so expressive. The smallest fluctuation in her squint speaks volumes. She’s smart, resourceful and bound and determined to go against the clan-like system and discover the whereabouts of her father. Her father put the house up as collateral for his jail bond and is nowhere to be found, her mother is a catatonic drug addict. Ree is the homemaker and care-provider for her two younger siblings. She’s also a high school student. And the way that Jennifer Lawrence portrays her as someone who is still a teenager, but far from a normal one is wonderful. Truly, she is a gifted and promising young actress. I look forward to watching her blossom and display her formidable talents in the future.
