WINTER'S BONE (2010) (****)

This film reminds me so much of FROZEN RIVER, the great indie thriller from 2008. Both films follow poor women wrapped up in illegal activities. The wooded settings in winter add to the desperate tone of the narrative. Both follow resilient women and both were directed by women. And most importantly they're one of the best films of their respective years.

All the characters in this tale seem vaguely related. But family is invoked when you need something from someone and that doesn't guarantee anything. One character won't even go and talk to her grandfather because she's scared of him. Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence, TV's THE BILL ENGVALL SHOW) though takes family deadly serious. She's 17 and has had to drop out of high school so she can care for her mentally broken mother and two younger siblings. They live off the land eating squirrels and chopping wood from their timber land in the Ozarks. Her father is a meth dealer who just takes off for stretches of time. But now he's been arrested and he's put up his property for his bond. Sheriff Baskin (Garrett Dillahunt, TV's THE 4400) comes by the house saying their dad is nowhere to be found and if he doesn't make his court date they'll lose it all.

Ree goes looking for her father, but she hits roadblocks everywhere she turns. Her uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW) is an ex-con with a rep that makes the most hardened criminal quiver. When Ree first comes to visit him, he forcefully tells her that a man jumping bond to avoid jail is that man's business and no one else's. Everywhere she turns she only gets lies. When she goes to talk to the grandfather mentioned earlier she doesn't even make it past the door. Merab (Dale Dickey, CHANGELING), an intimating woman who might make Aileen Wuornos shutter, makes it very clear that she should not be poking her nose in other people's business. These are people suspicious of their own shadows because they keep following them around.

Ree becomes like a shadow. It's dangerous to try these people, but she has nothing left to lose. Lawrence is remarkable as Ree, a resourceful, confident and pig headed young woman. Her younger brother and sister are virtually parentless and she is determined to raise them up strong. She expects decency from others even if decency was the first thing those people abandoned when they got wrapped up in the drug trade. In this business, they're not just the president but also the client and they consume as much as they sell.

Director Debra Granik (DOWN TO THE BONE) co-wrote the script with Anne Rosellini based on Daniel Woodrell's novel. What the film does so well is to tell a story about hicks from the Ozarks without making it a film about "hicks from the Ozarks." These are not caricatures. They are raw, real people. Granik is helped enormously by the subtle acting of the cast. Lawrence plays Ree as a world weary warrior who is driven to make the world seem as normal as possible to her little brother and sister. Hawkes and Dickey play their violent characters as people who have lived with violence everyday of their lives. It's a way of life in their part of the woods. And through the violence and hate both find a way to bring out the humanity in the characters as well.

Ree's quest to find her father turns from a mystery to a thriller to a human drama. The loss of the house to the Dollys is more than the loss of a home or possession, but the loss of their humanity. As Ree describes it, they'll be forced to live in a field like dogs. We feel that as an audience. But when it's obvious that it's crucial to others that her father stay missing, can she make anyone else feel it?