Winter's Bone
by Bernardo Villela
What is perhaps most interesting about WINTER'S BONE is that it is a hybrid, or as close as you can get, between two cinematic philosophies. Alfred Hitchcock was quoted as saying that he didn’t want his films to be slices of life but rather slices of cake, or in other words: extraordinary events and stories are all that need apply. In WINTER'S BONE you see a slice of life of a family in the Ozarks particularly Ree, very effectively portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence. It concerns her trying to learn the whereabouts of her estranged father to try and assure he shows up at a court date lest they lose their house and land which was put up as bond.
The way it becomes a combination tale is that most of what we witness is Ree going around talking friends and relatives both close and distant trying to gather the pieces and trying to find out what happened. Eventually it does all come together but it isn’t seen. The tale of Jessup Dolly is the slice of cake film that you construct in your mind through the information you learn as you follow Ree. The film you watch, the slice of life, is one of stark realism in which a girl has been forced to grow up too soon and is trying to break a cycle of poverty, drug abuse and dealing and the first step is maintaining the status quo.
It is rare to have this amount of subtext, pre-history and off-screen action in a film and for all these disparate and not readily apparent facts to make sense to an audience you truly need to have a strong cast to lean on. This film has that and what’s more refreshing in hopes of staying true to the nature of the tale it is telling most of the case are either newcomers or unknowns. Anonymity in casting can be a great thing as it allows you to more readily focus on the character and their arc rather than the actor and their performance.
Something else that is refreshing about this film is that while it deals with people who make a distribute crystal meth and deals with its underworld the film’s seediness is minimal and treats the characters as people and not types and furthermore isn’t a sensationalistic story but a relatable one.
The film also benefits from stating clearly the need that the main character has at the beginning and how she will have to deal with it. It is simply stated and out front which is crucial when there are many circular and arcane conversations with people who withhold information.
The score to the film is both regional and effective, it can be a risky move to go outside the norm for a genre-based score but it’s very naturalistic and not in any way cloying and thus blends into the surroundings quite well.
The end of the film is, sad to say, just a bit tidy. While you don’t get a happily ever after moment and you can infer that it was a function of the protagonist’s dogged insistence it does seem slightly fairy-tale like even though the film does something wise and allows you to sit with the information for a moment and watch Ree be unchanged as her and her siblings sit on the porch like nothing much happened.
WINTER'S BONE is a thought-provoking film that would most likely benefit greatly from a second viewing and despite a somewhat discordant ending it is a journey well worth taking.
