The Hurt Locker of 2010By John DeSando, "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
"Ain't you got no men that can do this?" An Ozark matron demands of Ree
And I thought Ben Affleck's The Town gave me a sense of place (Charlestown, Mass.); director Debra Granik's Winter's Bone does it without the city noise. The Ozarks in southern Missouri is the scene of 17-year-old Ree's (Jennifer Lawrence) journey to find her dad and save the family property. Dad dealt drugs, put the homestead up for bond, and has a week to show up to court before the sheriff takes possession.
Forget your Coal Miner's Daughter; these hills embrace a poverty that film rarely catches so honestly. Winter's Bone has a bleak sky and trashed terrain--cars and appliances and bones to name a few of the blights. Although the characters don't quite come from Deliverance, they are scary enough in their taciturn mien and stern insularity to make me consider avoiding the Ozarks the next time I cross the country.
As secretive as the grave is a sub culture that protects its own and a family bonding that makes the middle class look alienated from itself by comparison. However, as much as Ree tries to find her dad, so the local silence gets deeper until she is almost stopped by brute force.
But she and dad's brother, Teardrop (John Hawkes), don't let go for the survival of her family of little brother, sister, and mentally-disabled mom. Without Ree and the homestead, all is lost in a world where so little income makes every transaction seem life or death.
Jennifer Lawrence should be nominated for an Oscar, so authentic does she play a smart and determined warrior against ignorance. Comparison to Jody Foster would be appropriate. Also John Hawkes gives a supporting performance of a lifetime: flinty, volatile, and surprisingly considerate.
Sundance winner Winter's Bone is the Hurt Locker of 2010: a stripped-down treatment of violence, intense protagonist, grey tones with bleak landscape, not-well-known female director, and Oscar worthy. Here in mid September I'd predict the Oscar except that most of the best films of the year will be rolled out in the next 3 months.
Right now, it's my year's favorite.
John DeSando co-hosts It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee for WCBE 90.5. The shows can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com