Was Requiem For A Dream too relentlessly feelgood for you? How about The Road? Too chirpy and upbeat? If so, Winters Bone could be the film for you. Although for most of its running time nothing very bad happens to anyone, Debra Graniks film based on Daniel Woodrells novel radiates bleakness from its core.
The best thing in the film is undoubtedly the impressive performance by Jennifer Lawrence. She plays 17-year-old Ree Dolly, a girl living in the bleak woodlands of Missouri whose life has been thrown into chaos by the sudden disappearance of her father. With her mother ill, Ree is forced to look after her two younger siblings. But with her dad having left the family in a precarious financial situation, they soon find themselves under threat of eviction. Ree has no choice other than to find out what has happened to her father if the remaining Dollys are to avoid becoming destitute. However with her father involved in some shady business before his departure, Ree soon finds that lots of people in the area arent too keen on her asking awkward questions about her dads disappearance.
Lawrence is great but it must be said Winters Bone isnt a tremendously easy watch. Its shot through with ugly looking sinister characters and is so low key that a sudden switch to a cattle market about halfway through feels like a major change of pace. Often feeling like a western, occasionally feeling like a horror, an underlying threat of violence pervades throughout. I also personally struggled a bit with the dialogue, which includes lines like Im looking for humps that aint sound and I brung these for each of you to raise up and soon had to resort to subtitles.
The bonus features are disappointing. The alternative opening is very short and the making of is not what it says it is: more a selection of amateur footage from the shoot with barely any other guidance.
Not an easy watch then but with excellent performances and consistently beautiful throughout, Winters Bone is a difficult film to fault.
Overall Verdict: Not a date movie but a superbly crafted piece of work which should mark the Oscar-nominated Lawrence out as a star.
Special Features:
The Making of Winters Bone Featurette
Deleted Scenes
Alternative Opening
Theatrical Trailer
Music Video Hardscrabble Elegy by Dickon Hinchliffe
Reviewer: Chris Hallam