This picture has a number of qualities that set it apart from most entertainments I've experienced recently. The writing is subtle and simple and quietly deep; the production design, musical choices and direction are effective because they are so extraordinarily straightforward, supporting that tight little script. The acting, much of it by non-actors, is persuasive and accurate. I'm not saying it's always easy to watch. There's grimness here, and pain, and a stark, textured shorthand that almost denies viewers the time to weep. But primarily, endearingly, "Winter's Bone" is notable for what it is not.
It's not a feel-good picture, even though its lead is a 17-year-old girl looking for her dad. It's not a brutal thriller, despite featuring teenagers wandering woods populated by armed, drug-addled rednecks. And it's not an ode to the simple life, though it presents likable ragamuffins in the bosom of Heartland countryside.
So what is it? Great independent filmmaking, the kind Miramax almost gave a bad name, the kind that tells a story absent of primary-color commentary, unlikely happy endings, unnecessary violence, false emotion, and the rest of the junk that keeps thoughtful moviegoers out of the multiplex in the summer.
I don't know when I've seen a less sentimental movie: the tragedies and horrors of the rural criminal life pervade the story, yet they are not the story, and they do not derail the story. "Winter's Bone" asks me to feel sorry for no one, to be outraged on no one's behalf, to write a letter to no congressman. I am witness, not participant. I'm not implicated or accused, and so I am not insulted.
Before this one, I can't remember a film about hillbillies that wasn't at least a little condescending, not since "Harlan County USA", and that was a documentary. Shockingly, this movie treats the uneducated as engaged citizens in command of their faculties with every chance to live a fulfilled life. Nobody in this story has more than a high school diploma, and our protagonist has less than that, yet there are no stupids here, no clowns. Most of the characters are frighteningly competent and capable. Some of them are wise.
And rare and precious is the movie about teenage girls that treats them as neither object nor subject of sexual action. How beautiful to avoid the whole oversaturated palette of pubescent angst! How thankful I am to Debra Granik for presenting a few days in the journey of a heroine who walks through fire, loses all, gains all, and feels no need to turn from the path to kiss a boy.
It's not a feel-good picture, even though its lead is a 17-year-old girl looking for her dad. It's not a brutal thriller, despite featuring teenagers wandering woods populated by armed, drug-addled rednecks. And it's not an ode to the simple life, though it presents likable ragamuffins in the bosom of Heartland countryside.
So what is it? Great independent filmmaking, the kind Miramax almost gave a bad name, the kind that tells a story absent of primary-color commentary, unlikely happy endings, unnecessary violence, false emotion, and the rest of the junk that keeps thoughtful moviegoers out of the multiplex in the summer.
I don't know when I've seen a less sentimental movie: the tragedies and horrors of the rural criminal life pervade the story, yet they are not the story, and they do not derail the story. "Winter's Bone" asks me to feel sorry for no one, to be outraged on no one's behalf, to write a letter to no congressman. I am witness, not participant. I'm not implicated or accused, and so I am not insulted.
Before this one, I can't remember a film about hillbillies that wasn't at least a little condescending, not since "Harlan County USA", and that was a documentary. Shockingly, this movie treats the uneducated as engaged citizens in command of their faculties with every chance to live a fulfilled life. Nobody in this story has more than a high school diploma, and our protagonist has less than that, yet there are no stupids here, no clowns. Most of the characters are frighteningly competent and capable. Some of them are wise.
And rare and precious is the movie about teenage girls that treats them as neither object nor subject of sexual action. How beautiful to avoid the whole oversaturated palette of pubescent angst! How thankful I am to Debra Granik for presenting a few days in the journey of a heroine who walks through fire, loses all, gains all, and feels no need to turn from the path to kiss a boy.