PLIMOTH CINEMA: 'Winter’s Bone'

There is no better film to follow The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire than this week’s Winter’s Bone. There are interesting parallels between Lisbeth Salander and Ree Dolly, the protagonists in those films.

Both are strong young women of few words and deep resolve, driven single mindedly to solve a dangerous mystery. Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is no kick-ass Goth, ala Lisbeth Salander, but rather a quiet, tough-as-nails, Ozarks backcountry 17-year-old on a mission to save her family. Ree must have the courage and resolve to break cultural rules and ask questions that should not be asked as she ventures unwelcome into a threatening community.

Ree is on a quest to locate her father, Jessup, who disappeared after being arrested for manufacturing crystal meth (crank). He was released on bail after using the family's house as security. If Ree does not find her father in 10 days, she will lose the family home to the bail bondsman. Ree is head of the family because her mother is near catatonic. In addition to caring for her mother, Ree is responsible for raising her two younger siblings and she must now single handedly step up to keep the sheriff from turning them out in the cold.

In times of trouble, one can usually turn to family, but Ree soon finds both the limits and the depths of backcountry family bonds. The denizens of her community are different; they live isolated from society, wary of any inquiries in a form of backwoods omerta. They view Ree’s quest as just leading to trouble and will try to dissuade her from her course. It’s a hardened community with many relatives that will threaten you with violence one moment and sit with you the next.

This part of the Ozarks is dirt poor. While it’s easy to think of the residents as hillbillies, Cambridge-born Director Deborah Granik does not condescend. Like an anthropologist, she captured the real essence of the people and their culture. We are taken to a place that’s as foreign to us as Moscow or Khartoum.

Granik worked so hard for a sense of realism in the dialect and details of daily life that she had to keep remembering that it’s a narrative feature, not a documentary.

The local sheriff introduced Granik to some people that acted in the film and to the families who opened their houses for filming. There was no Hollywood set stylist at work here. The unaltered homes and possessions, the rusted autos and other cast-off objects in the yards are what they are.

Granik cast locals that could not be found in central casting. Ree’s two siblings were local children; six-year-old Ashlee lives in the house where Granik filmed the movie.

Granik learned about the region’s sad evolution – from bootlegging moonshine to cooking crank. It is a real and present scourge and an important thread in this backcountry story. The film may be fiction but it reflects the lamentable grasp that crank has on these people.

Frozen River offered a similar story of a woman crossing legal and social boundaries to keep her family together, traveling the same poverty stricken back roads and living in the same rundown homes. The two women are on the same chilling journey, whether it’s crossing a river of melting ice or crossing fearful Ozark swamps in the company of dangerous people.

The film carries a vague sense of white-knuckled menace throughout. You don’t know whether the people Ree must deal with are there to help her or make her disappear. Its grisly dénouement is thoroughly consistent with the story.

Though this may all sound rather dark and off-putting, be assured that you are buoyed up and carried through the film by the courage and determined optimism of Ree Dolly. It’s the masterful acting job by relative newcomer Jennifer Lawrence that lifts the film.

Critic Bill Goodykoonz sums it up well: “Winter’s Bone is a genuine triumph, a great movie with astounding performances, so natural, so genuine, that you forget it’s a movie.”

In addition to winning two awards at Sundance, including the Grand Jury Prize, this harrowing and chilling thriller is an early candidate for a best-picture Oscar. The national critics give the film a 95 percent rating. It’s not to be missed.

Screenings are offered every day at 4:30 and 7 p.m. Check film times by calling 508-746-1622, ext. 8877, check Plimoth Cinema’s film listings at www.plimoth.org or sign up for e-mail notices of upcoming films

All films are screened in the Linn Theater in Plimoth Plantation’s Visitor Center. Beer and wine are offered each Saturday. General admission is $9.50, $7.50 for Plantation members and seniors. Plimoth Cinema Club Cards, valid for the 2009 season, cost $10 and entitle one person to $1.50 off admission to any film shown at the Cinema.