Winter’s Bone

Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17-year-old who has been left in charge of her family household—two younger siblings and a semi-catatonic mother—in a run-down, clannish enclave somewhere in the Ozarks. Her absent father, a fugitive from justice with multiple convictions for cooking meth, has put up the family property as bail after his latest arrest. When he disappears on the eve of his court date, he leaves his family on the brink of homelessness, and it falls to Ree to see if she can track him down. Ree and her family are part of an outlaw subculture that has a stringently patriarchal code of honor, and her bold attempts to find her father put her at odds not only with the haughtily remote patriarchs themselves but also with the women who serve as intermediaries between them and the rest of the family. Director Debra Granik and producer Anne Rosellini co-wrote the screenplay adaptation of the novel by Daniel Woodrell. Woodrell seems an Ozark-based cross between Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard. Granik’s smart, laconic direction and Michael McDonough’s moody-gray cinematography do full justice to that flavorsome blend. Pageant Theatre. Rated R