Winter's Bone

Recommended to me at Christmas by someone in my family (see I do listen to you guys, I just can't remember who said it), a rental copy of the DVD of Winter's Bone entered my possession late last week.  Winter's bone is the story of Ree (played by Jennifer Lawrence) and her small family.  Ree is 17 years old, but her father is a drug dealer gone AWOL and her mother has lost her mind, so Ree is responsible for herself, her mother and two younger siblings.  When Ree's father vanishes after putting their house up as bail money, the bailiffs tell Ree that she has only a week to get out.  That is of course unless she can find her father - alive or dead.

This is clearly the film that landed Jennifer Lawrence the role of a young lifetime in The Hunger Games.  In Winter's Bone she plays a very similar character in a similar-looking world.  She is young, innocent-looking but mentally tough and wise beyond her years living in an uncaring and harsh rural environment.  As Ree starts to search for her father she quickly comes to realise that he was involved in some nefarious business deals in the local community - a closed place where blood is thicker than water and you pay a heavy price for betrayal.  Ree receives a number of beatings, both physical and psychological, as she tries to penetrate this community in search of the truth about her Dad.  It's a journey that takes incredible strength, all at the same time that she's trying to be a parent to her young brother and sister.  Lawrence plays the role by giving a calm inner strength to her character, it's an excellent performance that clearly went noticed amongst Holywood casting directors.

It's a compelling story that's about how you don't have to be waving a sword and giving grand speeches to be a hero.  Ree does neither of these things, and the crux of the film comes when she goes to an army recruitment centre to try to sign up for the $40,000 bonus advertised on posters.  The recruitment guys tells her that the army wont be any good for her, and that she needs to be strong and brave to stay with her family.  It's a scene that feels a little awkward (apparently it was filmed using a real army recruitment officer rather than an actor) but is important - there's nothing easy about running a gauntlet of fear set up by local gangs in search of a better life, and equally there's nothing easy about being a single parent.