Winter's Bone (2010) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Mystery | Thriller

17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods. Challenging her outlaw kin's code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth. Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone is the winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize.

User Comment: Mr Impossible (enedrulesyou@yahoo.com) from United States, 8 August 2010 • Winter's Bone is about a 17 year old girl name Rolly Dee set out to find her father who put their house for his bailbond and then vanishes. If she doesn't find him, her family will be turned out to the Ozarks. Challenging her outlaw kin's code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth.

Let me, just begin by saying this movie is perfectly acted. Jennifer Lawrence gives an Oscar Worthy performance as Rolly Dee. I was surprised how excellent she was, because I was sceptical of her in the "The Bill Engvall" show. But she turned me to a believer and boy, she can REALLY act. Her performance actually surpasses some of Meryl Streep's performances. Hopefully the Academy will recognize her and give an Oscar nomination or maybe even a win! The film is well directed by Debra Granik and is easily her best work yet. She definitely has potential to become the "new" Kathryn Bigelow. Anyways the film is really bleak and powerful, but it still has a tone of hopeful in it. Very interesting and mesmerizing movie to watch. It is a bit slow at times, but trust me it never gets boring or dull.

Summary: Haunting, Grim, but somehow Optimistic.

User Comment: Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C., 27 June 2010 • It is quite astonishing what people are capable of when their survival or way of life is threatened. In those moments, they are somehow able to employ a level of courage, perseverance, and high intention that they never knew they had. Such is the case for young Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) in Debra Granik's The Winter's Bone, winner of the Jury Prize for dramatic competition as well as the Waldo Salt Screen writing Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Newcomer Lawrence, a Kentucky native, is completely convincing as the 17-year-old Ree who has endured much in her brief lifetime and has plenty of obstacles yet to overcome. Living in poverty in a small house in the rural Missouri Ozarks, near the Arkansas border, she has to cook, chop wood and do whatever is necessary to care for her twelve-year old brother Sonny (Isaiah Stone) and her six-year old sister Ashlee (Ashlee Thompson) as well as look after her mother who is catatonic.

Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell and co-written by Granik and Anne Rosellini, The Winter's Bone depicts how young Ree's life is changed when the local sheriff informs her that her dad, Jessup, on the run after being arrested for "cooking" methamphetamines, has put the family's house up as bond and that, unless he is found and convinced to turn himself in, Ree's family will lose their house. Insisting to the sheriff that she will find him, the young girl begins a search among friends, family members, distant relatives, and the community of small-time crooks, dope dealers, and kingpins that dominate the male-dominated rural society. No one wants to talk and Ree is met with silence, hostility, and even violence. One neighbor tells her that her questioning is, "a real good way to end up et by hogs." When someone asks her, "Ain't you got no men folk to do this?" the answer is an emphatic "no." (at times, the film seems to be challenging Juno for the most quirky one-liners).

Ree's main antagonists are her father's terrifying older brother Teardrop, played by John Hawkes, and Merab (Dale Dickey), the wife of Thump Milton, one of the local bosses. The performance by Dickey conveys an overbearing sense of intimidation that is both real and frightening. As Ree navigates through this hostile environment, we grow to admire her determination and her willingness to confront danger in order to protect her siblings. Winter's Bone is a film about poverty and desperation but it never exploits its characters or engages in manipulation or sentimentality. Though it can be hard to watch at times, it is not as some critics have said "poverty porn." There are lighter moments as well that include authentic Ozark folk music sung by Marideth Sisco and scenes of Ree teaching her brother and sister to spell, count, and perhaps more important for survival, how to shoot a rifle. She also tells her younger brother about the culture in which they live saying "Never ask for what ought to be offered."

Though I was riveted by the unfolding story, perhaps because of the film's high degree of stylization, I stopped short of full emotional involvement and was often conscious of the fact that I was watching a movie. Yet The Winter's Bone is a rich, satisfying film that more than deserves the accolades it has been receiving. Though it is stylized, it has an authenticity derived from using local residents as actors and from the director having immersed herself in the culture for two years before shooting the film. Jennifer Lawrence conveys a stoic and hard-edged individual, yet one with integrity who has somehow avoided getting sucked into the soul destructive way of life that seems to be endemic to the area. In Ree, Granik has created one of the strongest female characters in cinema in memory, one who, by her sheer will, suggests what could be accomplished if all of us could live each day as if our life depended on it.

Summary: A rich, satisfying film.

[CSW] -5- Bleak and powerful but still mesmerizing this film gives a good glimpse into the lives and people that are so reclusive and stoic that they remain hidden from any understanding by outsiders. The bleak, impoverished and hostile nature of their survival coupled with the outlaw nature from their original bootlegging now drug-making, clannish beginnings carries with it the hard, cold, tough, mean and something that seems to border on hatred for any outsider and sometime even for kin, make it very tough to get answers from any of them. This was a beautiful portrayal of what people are capable of when their survival or way of life is threatened. In those moments, they are somehow able to employ a level of courage, perseverance, and high intention that they never knew they had. It truly is an engrossing film of the stark realism of the run down world that is a slice of backwoods American life, yet it still somehow manages to retain an air of optimism.
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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