Winter's Bone is The Godfather set in the Ozarks, a tale of clannish crime and punishment in the name of the business at hand, which in this case is the cooking and selling and using of crystal meth.
Stubborn Ree Dolly has to find her missing father or risk losing the family home; her wide-scattered, and dubious, relatives won't let her. At points, the plot is difficult to follow but it all unspools eventually and you end up rooting for Ree and suffering with her as she makes the sacrifices to protect her family.
The performances by the no-name cast are gritty, the sets depressing. Shot in the area around our beloved Branson, Missouri, it's a vastly different take of the touristy side of the Ozarks. I liked, especially, the scene where Ree talks with an Army recruiter at school about enlistment as a possible way out. The recruiter plays it straight and respectful and you get the sense she appreciates his manner even though he lays some hard truth on her.
A tight, impressive movie
Saturday, October 30, 2010
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And I enjoyed how realistic it was. For instance, instead of hopping into a car, like in an action movie, she has to find people to lend her one. It's a perfectly normal struggle for someone who's poor, one that would be completely overlooked by most screen writers. Who needs explosions when every day is a struggle?
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