Daniel Woodrell's novel of the same name is adapted by director Debra Granik and becomes a movie critic's darling. When 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is told the home she and her family live in will be confiscated unless her drug-dealing father Jessup is found, she takes things into her own hands to search the underbelly of Missouri hillbilly country - and its vile web of secrets and mean inhabitants - to discover the truth. Sadly, she finds it in a swamp but does come out richer for it. Winter's Bone is beautifully filmed in an unflinching fashion and cuts very near the bone. And while Lawrence, John Hawkes (as her uncle Teardrop) and especially Dale Dickey (as the cruel-to-be-kind matriarch Merab) are all excellent, in the end you have no emotional attachment to these folks - real as they may be in portrayal - and worse, tire of the dreariness of the whole thing. A good example of style over substance, Winter's Bone leaves this critic cold indeed.
My rating 4 out of 10.
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