Salina Art Center

It’s a bleak, unforgiving world that director Debra Granik presents in Winter’s Bone, a devastating adaptation (by Granik and Anne Rosellini) of the novel by Daniel Woodrell.  The premise is simple: 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) has one week to find her father, who was arrested for selling meth but skipped bail.  He put up the house as collateral for the bond, and if he isn’t found-dead or alive-Ree Dolly, her mother, and her younger brother and sister will be forced out of their home.  Like their rural Ozark neighbors, the family has lived in poverty for generations; their house is the only thing they have of value, the only thing that keeps them from hitting absolute rock bottom.  It’s up to Ree Dolly, with a stoic determination that exceeds her years, to bring her father home.  So begins an odyssey through parts of America that most of us have never seen or wanted to see, but there’s an undercurrent of hope that keeps the story from becoming too depressing.  Ree Dolly herself has extraordinary faith in others, and many of the down-and-out people she encounters on her journey seem to respond to that faith, revealing their own better selves after some initial reluctance.  The exception is Teardrop, Ree Dolly’s drug-addicted, hateful uncle, played with live-wire intensity by John Hawkes.  His performance is equal to that of newcomer Jennifer Lawrence, who shows absolutely no Hollywood-style artifice, sentiment, or big “acting” in her characterization-it’s a difficult role, playing a youthful heroine of great strength and courage, while remaining a believable product of her rough upbringing rather than a sanctified screenwriter’s creation.  Lawrence and Hawkes are so authentic they could have stepped out of a genuine backwoods village in the heart of Deliverance country.  The atmosphere of rural poverty, drug abuse, neglect, hopelessness, and casual lawlessness are all captured with frightening accuracy by Granik’s film, causing some critics to liken it to a real-life version of The Road.  Unlike the Cormac McCarthy novel, however, this desolation wasn’t caused by a science fiction apocalypse: it’s a part of modern-day America, but not a part that most films (even documentaries) have revealed with such merciless clarity.  Granik’s direction is stylish without ever letting the story become slack and moody; she creates a strange, edgy underworld that mixes elements of Southern Gothic, the nihilism of Jim Thompson novels, and the lurid appeal of “white trash” crime stories like the Charles Starkweather murder spree of the ‘50’s.  Ree Dolly’s world is tough, brutal, and unsympathetic, and when following her character on her journey-one that seems destined to end tragically-audiences are left to contemplate how much inner strength and determination this child  must possess just to survive.  Her environment makes government rhetoric about “No Child Left Behind” sound like a sad joke.  But there’s no political agenda or moralizing here: like the film’s title, the story is stripped to the “bone,” without an ounce of fat or wasted posturing.  Characterization comes from action-viewers are trusted to read the motivations, hostilities, goals, and ambitions of people who aren’t articulate and can’t express themselves clearly.  It’s a strategy that makes even the smallest roles extremely vivid and complex, and it brings audiences into this unfamiliar world and makes it even more real to us.  Perhaps it bears mentioning that many critics have noted that what they consider the best American film of the year happens to have been directed by a woman, just a year after Kathryn Bigelow broke the gender barrier by winning the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker (another hard-hitting film that takes viewers places where other films shy away).  And more female directors (Nicole Holofcener has also been singled out for Please Give) seem to be making excellent dramatic films this year.  Maybe a few acclaimed films don’t constitute a “wave” of female filmmakers, but it’s still an exciting development in American cinema.  One hopes this trend does become a wave, particularly if the result is a film as spellbinding and unforgettable as Winter’s Bone.