REVIEW: Winter's Bone a Little Too Pleased With its Own Folky Bleakness
But if Winter's Bone is stark to the point of being mannered, it's not completely airless. And in the end, Granik's compassion for Ree is what rings out most clearly: She recognizes the character's constrained circumstances without ever pitying her. Lawrence's performance, impressively quiet and controlled, isn't the kind that invites pity anyway. When Ree brings one of the family pets, a horse, to a neighbor's house for safekeeping (the horse hasn't eaten in a while, and there's no money to feed it), even her physical stance commands respect: There's both authority and humility in the way she approaches her neighbor's house, knowing she needs to ask for that neighbor's charity. Lawrence shows that for Ree, the moment is less about the family's bruised pride than about the animal's well-being.
This is a family that, despite the fact its human members barely have enough to eat, won't hesitate to take in a stray dog in trouble. In fact, one of the things Winter's Bone captures best is the generosity of people who often don't have much themselves -- Granik doesn't present that kind of generosity as a pleasant surprise, but as a given. In one of the movie's finest scenes, Ree tries to sign up for the military -- it's pretty much the only means of escape for young people in her area -- and is talked out of that choice by an army recruiter, who susses out the difficulty of her situation and, kindly but firmly, makes it clear that her family needs her much more than the military does. In that sense, Winter's Bone, for all its bleakness, is surprisingly optimistic: While it may be ill-advised to expect the best from people, expecting the worst may actually draw it out of them. Better to drive the devil out than to invite him in to make himself at home.
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Hey, Rishi, your rudeness and insensitivity aren't welcome here. If you want to take issue with SZ's points like an adult, do so. I won't tolerate personal attacks.
"In fact, one of the things Winter’s Bone captures best is the generosity of people who often don’t have much themselves — Granik doesn’t present that kind of generosity as a pleasant surprise, but as a given."
To some of this, this isn't an example of capturing what is true, but once again, more primitivism -- the cruelty in not really wanting to look straight at the "other." More true to life, from what I've known, is what is actually hinted at when Mother Marsh gives away her big turkey dinners to even poorer families in "Little Woman," namely: it's not about helping other people, but about the strange pleasure and even feeling of empowerment you (or rather warped, masochistic people) get when you deprive yourself to the point of real self-harm. Not generosity or significant attendance (to others), but pleasure (to self), through sacrifice, is the norm for love-starved, impoverished people. Look closer.
Thanks for you review. It's reassuring I'm not alone in my dissent from the masses of adoring critics. I, quite frankly, cannot believe this film has escaped such very obvious criticisms. Is that just it, though...they think this film somehow transcends it all?
regarding the comments about "screenwriterese": I live in the Arkansas Ozarks, and people around here really do talk like that. There aren't many films that take place in the Ozarks, but this is one of the more authentic I have seen. Obviously, we aren't all meth-cooking tribal backwoods types, but this isn't far off those who are.
I didn't enjoy this movie. I understand what the director/writer was trying to convey but after one hour of watching Ree search for her father and run into the same characters and ask the same questions and get the same answers, I was bored. There was no suspense because we didn't know her father to care about him; or her for that matter.
Aside from the book its based on and John Hawkes performance this was just a smattering of garbage... in frame. Really Sundance?!?!
Wow, I really disagree. It honestly seems like this reviewer wanted to find shallowness in a very deep film simply because of some percieved "otherness" of the community the characters are from. I grew up in Kentucky. Perhaps my familiarity with this type of culture and location is why I felt I was watching a tense drama, not a condescending trip into the hillbilly soul, but I can see how the location could be distracting to people not accustomed to it.
Absolutely boring an over hyped crap...