Bred and Buttered in Rural USA
I came across Winter's Bone
back when no Silver Linings Playbook
or The Hunger Games
were released. I was going on a Lawrence marathon (yeah, that's a thing. A biathlon to be exact. It consists of eating bacon and watching Jennifer Lawrence act for 26 hours). When I saw the genius adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's novel
, my jaw dropped. It dropped because of Debra Granik's direction and vision in portraying rural America. And because of John Hawkes in a tough supporting role. It dropped because of Lawrence's talent as a young untrained actor. Winter's Bone is the story of 17-year-old Ree Dolly who raises her 2 younger siblings and supports her mentally-ill mother in the middle of the Ozarks. The father is a well-known local meth cooker that no one has seen recently. So basically, she has a crappy life but wait! It gets worse. The sheriff shows up and tells her that her dad put up their house as part of his bond. They'll lose it if he doesn't show up for court. She has a week to find her missing dad. I find Winter's Bone mesmerizing with truth. Maybe it's because the set of this independent movie is made of what the crew found there. The houses, the wild, none of this was created by a Hollywood studio. Maybe the locals acting in the movie made it authentic. Maybe the lower-class misery to a background of drug addiction and the family relationships going to hell speaks to me. Yes, you can find it slow sometimes. But guess what! This is real life. I personally enjoy a director who gives time to... Well, time. Time for the plot to flow and make sense. Granik succeeds here in taking time for the story to happen without ever being boring. Lawrence's performance blows my mind. What I see on screen is a person with hardness anchored to her guts. Imagine being Academy-Award nominated for Best Actress before your twenties hand in hand with Natalie Portman or Annette Bening? The local music sets up the atmosphere for you. It could have been too much to have a banjo-based soundtrack
on a movie taking place in the Ozarks but it really is just what it needed. You can even see the Blackberry Winter Band performing in the movie.
back when no Silver Linings Playbook
or The Hunger Games
were released. I was going on a Lawrence marathon (yeah, that's a thing. A biathlon to be exact. It consists of eating bacon and watching Jennifer Lawrence act for 26 hours). When I saw the genius adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's novel, my jaw dropped. It dropped because of Debra Granik's direction and vision in portraying rural America. And because of John Hawkes in a tough supporting role. It dropped because of Lawrence's talent as a young untrained actor. Winter's Bone is the story of 17-year-old Ree Dolly who raises her 2 younger siblings and supports her mentally-ill mother in the middle of the Ozarks. The father is a well-known local meth cooker that no one has seen recently. So basically, she has a crappy life but wait! It gets worse. The sheriff shows up and tells her that her dad put up their house as part of his bond. They'll lose it if he doesn't show up for court. She has a week to find her missing dad. I find Winter's Bone mesmerizing with truth. Maybe it's because the set of this independent movie is made of what the crew found there. The houses, the wild, none of this was created by a Hollywood studio. Maybe the locals acting in the movie made it authentic. Maybe the lower-class misery to a background of drug addiction and the family relationships going to hell speaks to me. Yes, you can find it slow sometimes. But guess what! This is real life. I personally enjoy a director who gives time to... Well, time. Time for the plot to flow and make sense. Granik succeeds here in taking time for the story to happen without ever being boring. Lawrence's performance blows my mind. What I see on screen is a person with hardness anchored to her guts. Imagine being Academy-Award nominated for Best Actress before your twenties hand in hand with Natalie Portman or Annette Bening? The local music sets up the atmosphere for you. It could have been too much to have a banjo-based soundtrack
on a movie taking place in the Ozarks but it really is just what it needed. You can even see the Blackberry Winter Band performing in the movie. 
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