Oscar Roundup: Winter's Bone

If you’ve ever had a hankering for post apocalyptic anthropology, then “Winter’s Bone” is the film you ought to see. Taking place in modern rural Arkansas, amidst squirrel hunting and cooking up crank (methanphetamine), is a rich and varied cultural study of gender, politics, and the nuanced social graces of families and individuals on the cusp of ruin.

The lead performance by actress Jennifer Lawrence is Oscar nominated for good reason (although Natalie Portman is the likely Best Actress winner...nobody else lost half her body weight, went insane, and learned ballet). Her character, teenage Ree, is reminiscent of Jody Foster’s Clarice, as she goes about her business stoically and without question: tracking down her outlaw father so that her sick mother and young siblings will not lose their house.

From the highschool that she no longer attends (where the only classes we see being taught are parenting and marching practice - complete with rifles), to the chopping of wood, to the ever growing assortment of animals huddled around the shanty-like houses for warmth, it’s a world I can relate to (did I mention my family’s collection of expired vehicles, empty chicken coop, and eight cats?).

But white trash, left on its own for centuries, becomes something more...something with distinct and incomparable ballads sung in belted Southern accents, with a soft lilt of banjo music throughout. The characters lurk at doorways like vampires, waiting to be invited in, and the cussing is interspersed with ‘sirs’ and ‘ma’ams,’ because, despite the overwhelming poverty, there is no lack of culture here.

“Kneel down like you’re praying,” the main character tells her brother and sister as she teaches them survival skills, which in this case is learning to shoot. As she asks about after her father, we’re made painfully aware that this is a man’s world, where women mill around the periphery like watchdogs, and that the only reason Ree is doing the asking is that she has no men to do it for her.

The most painful part of the movie, for me, is when Ree sees her only glimmer of hope, joining the American Army (and getting a $40,000 bonus for 5 years of her life), dissolve before her; she has two kids to raise and no parent able to sign her up (as she’s still a minor). The money, while promised, would be months away, and there’s no way to take the kids with her to training. The recruiter tells her she’d best stay home, and Ree doesn’t bat an eye, but I cried.

And when a movie can make me cry over the fact that an intelligent child can’t sign away her life to the American military in order to become a soldier...you know it’s a heartbreaker.

Grade: A+