Winter's Bone (Granik, 2010)

[shariqq]

Winter's Bone
Debra Granik | U.S.A. | 2010
100 min

This highly acclaimed movie with much praise for the lead actress left me underwhelmed. Winter’s Bone is a reasonably well-made drama that falls short of being exceptional. It is a safe movie that follows a tried and tested path, never pushing the plot or characters to the potential they promise. It tries to be a realistic, bleak and an emotional story from Midwest US, but instead plays out like a fairly dark bedtime story, happy ending included.

20-yr old Jennifer Lawrence stars as 17-yr old Ree Dolly looking for her missing father. Her father, a criminal who cooks drugs, had put up their house for his bail, but is now missing. If he does not turn up for his court-hearing in the next few days, Dolly loses her house. With two younger siblings and an ailing mother to look after, Dolly must find him, dead or alive.

While director Debra Grank makes a satisfactory movie out of this plot, it plays safe and therefore fails at becoming memorable. Lawrence's performance is adequate, but again, not exceptional. The cold detachment she projects towards her father - we learn she has no reason to hate him - ensures we do not sympathize with her. Dolly goes back and forth between her house and other near houses of people she knows to inquire about her father, but never really ventures out, never really goes the length she would considering the dire alternate she faces with her family. In effect, there is no sense of desperation in her need to find her father. She faces no dangers except once, which too comes as no serious threat apart from limited physical harm. The well-off neighbors feed her horse and give them enough to eat. Everyone who starts out as a menace eventually turns around to assist her. The resolution to the film is equally underwhelming - help comes unexpectedly from all corners.

Winter’s Bone is the typical clichéd American independent film. Much like in mainstream Hollywood, the bulk of American independent film creativity seems to have mistaken a set of rules for creativity. While not a bad movie in any sense, Winter’s Bone becomes a by-the-books forgettable film because of the company it is in. In fact, so much so that by the time the movie ends, the title of the movie makes little sense, and there is no curiosity to find out why either.

My Rating --> 2 of 5

[animatedude]

Fincher: And I love Winter’s Bone, I thought that was, I thought she was stunning.

[shariqq]

Well, then he's a good film-maker and all, but his choice sucks.

[ayaa1977]

Well, then he's a good film-maker and all, but his choice sucks.

While I don't regard Winter's Bone one of my year favorite, but I don't think that it's as bad as you see it. It had many redeeming qualities, and I can see why those guys think highly of it.

[animatedude]

was this released in the gulf? or is it going to be released any time soon?

[madali]

Winter's Bone (Debra Granik, 2010)

Countries that hate USA should dub "Winter's Bone" in their language and show it on their national TV. It's a great propaganda tool to show how shitty life in USA can be, plus it's not that entertaining, so viewers would hate America, but also be a  bit bored, which will make them hate it even more.

Not that I was bored by it, but I am also smart enough to know that all America is not like the life of "Winter's Bone",  but other people have watched so many flashy American films, that they think America is something more exciting than it actually is. In this film, a girl lives in rural Americana, and her life is full of poverty and despair. She takes care of her two younger siblings and her sick mother, and has to manage life without a father. But if this wasn't bad enough, her father has been caught for drug use. But if this wasn't bad enough, he had put the family house as bail but he isn't turning up, meaning she might lose the house. And if THIS wasn't bad enough, she has to find his father by communicating with the worst hillbillies since "Deliverance". AND IF THIS WASN'T BAD ENOUGH, she has to do it all in teal and orange.

Oh yeah, the internet brought me to the attention of teal and orange in modern films, and "Winter's Bone" is a huge offender of that. Everything in this film is teal and orange. Specially teal. Clothes, from jeans to caps, and teal trucks and teal mugs and teal garbage bins. This film is so applauded for being an independent film, but its color scheme is no better than "Transformers".

3/5

[shariqq]

That's a lot of 3/5s from you today!