Film review: Winter's bone
American independent cinema doesn't get much better than this terse, hardscrabble, neo-detective story. Set in the bleakly beautiful environs of Missouri's Ozark mountain region, it's a no-nonsense film, with a tough, no-nonsense protagonist in the form of Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), a hard-bitten 17-year-old who discovers she has less than a week to track down her long-absent, bail-jumping father before she and her family are forced out of the home he's selfishly put up as collateral. Writer/director Debra Granik uses this up- against-it scenario to brilliant effect to fully immerse us in Ree's quest. As she knowingly enters a dangerous world of tight-lipped locals, backwoods crystal meth labs and relatives with a less-than-loving sense of kinship, we get a complete sense of Ree thanks to a carefully calibrated performance from Lawrence that negates the need for tedious back-story and is beautifully in sync with Granik's approach. With a cast comprised of local inhabitants and weathered character actors (John Hawkes as Ree's not-to-be-messed-with uncle is the stand-out), a soundtrack filled with old mountain ballads, and some haunting cinematography, the film delivers the basic pleasures of a thriller while transcending genre restrictions to become something more deeply affecting.