Caitlin Willis - Winter's Bone

Caitlin Willis
Intro. to Film Studies
12.15.16

Winter's Bone

          This 2010 drama film Winter's Bone was extremely anticlimactic. Despite the good reviews: a 94% from Rotten Tomatoes, a 7.2 from IMDb, and a 4/4 from Roger Ebert, I felt as though it wasn't as good as it could've been. The plot was slow and there were no major events to catch your attention. Simply put, if you weren't watching closely from the start then you wouldn't get into the movie.
          From the beginning (or at least from what I've heard seeing as I missed the start of the film), the movie had a lot of potential. Yes it was a cliche setting: a teen girl taking care of her younger siblings because of absent parents, it was in a different setting and the scenario was unique. Rather than her father just being gone like the average film, he was a drug dealer and maker evading arrest and her mother, rather than working to keep the family afloat, was mentally unstable. Not to mention, this entire movie took place deep in the countryside, unlike the typical urban family setting.
           Perhaps if the movie was a bit more eventful, it'd have been a more enjoyable watch. The cast was good, consisting of a young Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes and the plot had promise.