Ten years ago this weekend, the public met a new Hollywood star in the making. The movie that brought the world a new silver screen goddess wasn't the sort of big studio production that in the old golden days would've been the logic harbinger of stardom. Quite the contrary, the film in question was a modest indie. Director Debra Granik's Sundance prize-winning critical hit would go on to become a sleeper hit in arthouse release. We're talking, of course, about Winter's Bone and the performer bound for stardom's was future Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence…
Winter's Bone is about a girl searching for her father in the Ozark Mountains. It's also a stark portrait of a community where the bounds of honor that unite criminals are stronger and deeper than blood, and a character study on a young woman deadened by the harshness of her environment.
The future star of The Hunger Games and many a David O. Russell feature was only 19 when the movie hit theaters. Still, despite her youth, her breakout work in this grimy gloomy thriller showed great maturity and subtle canniness, one that avoids obvious shortcuts to dramatic resonance. Jennifer Lawrence is Ree Dolly, a teenager that has had to learn early on how to provide for herself and her younger siblings. Her absent father is an irresponsible criminal who's recently jumped bail while her mother is a pill-addict stuck in what seems to be a perpetual state of catatonic indifference. It's a dire situation all-around but things only get worse when, one sad morning, Ree's household is visited by a local cop who brings alarming news.
It seems that her father, when arrested on charges of drug trafficking, put their house and land up as bail. Then disappeared without a trace, putting the survival of his impoverished family at risk. As is the rule in Ree Dolly's life, it falls upon her to do right all the wrongs and she goes on a depressing odyssey through the Missouri land in search of some errand clue to find her father. Through her journey, she meets many members of her extended family, all of whom greet her with varying degrees of hostility. The whole story is a grueling affair, but nothing shocks this resourceful young woman. Quite the contrary, Lawrence plays Ree as someone so accustomed to hardship that no indignity takes her by surprise.
Well, almost.
Even Ree has limits, though Lawrence and her director are patient about revealing them. Part of Lawrence's accomplishment is how she refuses to make Ree into an extraordinary superwoman. There's a casualness to her way of being in front of the camera, a relaxed ease that helps highlight every instance when Ree is genuinely riled up. When she senses real danger, her presence changes radically. It becomes tense and unnerving, slow and rigid like a caged animal backed into a corner, preparing itself for an impending attack. Still, even then, Lawrence doesn't overstate this young woman's strength, allowing the audience to see where her mask of abrasive posturing ends and fear and vulnerability starts. If we felt Ree was untouchable, her struggles wouldn't hit us as hard.
Ree's struggle is one for survival amongst very dangerous people. It makes sense for this girl to project an image of prickly forcefulness, but it's equally necessary that the audience can see through it. This balancing act is a delicate thing and it's amazing how easy Lawrence makes it all feel. Her naturalism is seamless, perfectly in tune with Granik's camera. In the nighttime climax of Winter's Bone, the director fixes the camera on her leading actress's face, documenting all the gradations of horror she can express and the result is a spectacle of ravaged humanity.
Jennifer Lawrence is an actress whose talent doesn't often lie in the lived-in quality she brings to Winter's Bone. Her greatest assets otherwise tends to be her magnetism and indelible screen presence, something that was visible here early on beneath the layers of grime. Lawrence may never ask for the audience's sympathy, but her charisma conquers it easily nonetheless. All things considered, Lawrence's performance as Ree Dolly continues to have the power to surprise ten years later, after we've become quite familiar with her. Of all her Oscar nominations, this is her best. This only reminds us that Jennifer Lawrence can be a remarkably intelligent performer. Here's hoping she gets more chances to show that side of herself in the future.
Ten years after Winter's Bone hit theaters, do you think it deserved the four Oscar nominations it got?