SELECTED SHORTS

Granik’s location filming is an atmospheric asset, as she ably
conjures a sense of fearsome dread from the Ozark back country, a
creepiness that some moviegoers may equate to Deliverance. (The
moviemakers did contemplate shooting in upstate New York’s deep woods,
long-ago home of the Ward Brothers, before settling on the Missouri
locale.) Her shrewd use of sound pays more dividends, like the early
scene when Ashlee feeds the family dog and the distant blasts of a rifle
can be heard, or the strange moment when you realize that the siblings
are resting atop a waterbed.

It’s possible to construe Winter’s Bone as an offbeat just-say-no movie, as well as a shocking update on the good-ol-boy movie genre; the moonshine stills of Thunder Road have long since given way to the meth labs of Winter’s Bone,
although the battle between keeping dark secrets and snitching for the
feds remains eternal. Yet it’s also a tale of lost innocence. Ree
exhibits a wisdom far beyond her years, as brief vignettes demonstrate
how much she has already given up; she looks longingly at her school
gymnasium as her ROTC peers march in lockstep, depicting a sense of
order that her upside-down world simply cannot accommodate. 

Young actress Jennifer Lawrence is terrific in this marathon role
(her Ree is in every scene), expertly alternating from flinty to
vulnerable depending on the truth of the moment. Dale Dickey also scores
as Merab, the mountain woman who surely knows too much; she takes great
glee in spitting out the tangy script’s dialogue (co-written by Granik
and Anne Rosellini, both working from Daniel Woodrell’s novel) with a
merciless venom, such as, “If you’re listenin’, child, you got your
answer.” And John Hawkes, perhaps best known for his stint on HBO’s Deadwood,
quietly dazzles as Teardrop, showcasing a tremendous depth for what
could have been a surface study of menace. When Teardrop says at the
climax, “I know who,” viewers will instinctively want Granik’s cameras
to turn direction and follow this misanthrope to his certain doom—but
it’s Ree’s character that we must follow to the end, not him.