A ovie of brutal poverty, great acting, and some edges and surprises: Winter's Bone

"Winter's Bone" likes up to its reputation - a totally captivating movie especially because of the work of its star, Julie(?) Lawrence, young actor who captures the plight of this 17-year-old nearly overwhelmed by the responsibilities of her life - invalid mother, two young sibs, dad on the run, no money, no social or family supports (at least so it seems). The plot's a little hard to unravel at times, made even more so by the heavy accents of the characters and their tendency to underplay the parts and even to drawl. But the tension throughout is palpable, and the director, whose name I don't recall, does a great job creating a whole world - you've never seen true Ozark poverty portrayed so effectively in a feature movie, I guarantee. Every scene, every moment, seems wracked with cold and the anguish of rural poverty: the crappy little houses, the old cars, the ugly landscape, the old tires and broken-down toys littering the yards, the crummy T-shirts and tattered jackets everyone wears, most of all the people, many of them grotesque, full of threat and menace, overweight, unhealthy, it's a world of hell - and a very believable one, not like some of the ridiculous action features and their cartoonish ideas of evil - these characters seem to have grown right out of the land, like forces of nature. (And then again, in the midst of this brutal and mean poverty, one scene of stunningly beautiful music - which makes you think about this terrain and this world in a different way - a movie, and a place, full of edges and surprises.) Many people praise the source book, by Donald Woodrell (?), and I'm sure it's great though I'm in no rush to read it - 90 minutes in this setting was plenty. Some unforgettable scenes: gutting the squirrel, reaching into the cold water to grab the hand of a corpse. After seeing this film, you'll never again set off into the Ozarks to show up unannounced at a meth lab.