What happens in the woods should stay in the woods

Winter's Bone (2010)

Missed this at the Helsinki International Film Festival and as I heard good things about it, it went to my wanted list. Finally got my hands on the DVD and watched it. Well it turned out to be a brilliant drama with a lot of thriller elements to boost. It's a story about a 17 year old girl who takes care of her younger brother and sister and a mentally ill mother, while her father has gone missing. Then the sherif threatens that the state will take their house if the father misses his pending court date. So the girl has to go look for him. It's a journey through the backwoods of Missouri and the white trash crystal meth "mafia" who all seem to be someway related to eachother and all unwilling to help her find the dad. The story is quite brilliant and the way it's told is even better. There's a constant feeling of danger as the "rednecks" seem to have their own laws of what can be done and asking around for a missing person is not among them. The cast is brilliant, especially John Hawkes as the isolated brother of the girls father and Dale Dickey is one of the most convincing drug lords I've seen in a while. Jennifer Lawrence does a solid job as the girl who needs to go through a lot more at a young age than most in their lifetime. The movie also looks stunning, the setting is astonishing and the way the movie is shot only brings the best out of it. If I try hard to find something bad about the movie, it's the ending which wasn't as strong as the movie before it, one twist kind of brought it down a bit too much. But all in all a brilliant movie and I really have to take a look at Debra Granik's previous works as she sure has talent.
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