Winter's Bone: A Movie Within the Meth Valley.

Winter’s Bone (2010), directed by Debra Granik, stars Jennifer Lawrence in a drama/ thriller based on a novel of the same name. 

In this film, Ree Dolly, our main character is a teenage girl is informed that her drug-dealing father put up their property as collateral for his bail, and failed to show up for court. She insists that he wouldn’t run away, and takes it upon herself to find him, even when experiencing dangerous push-back from certain shady figures. Now missing her father, she becomes the only capable guardian to her two younger siblings. 

Often movies reveals fears within the society that created it, and Winter’s Bone is an example of this. The themes and threats posed in this movie reflects a lot of current and past American concerns. Ree, our main character, lives with much of her family in Ozark Mountain, Missouri. This community, being as rural as it is, is at highest risk for a meth crisis. Meth, unlike other drugs, can be prepared anywhere, and thus is an unfortunate vice for certain people in Missouri, widely considered the capital of meth in the US. This is explicitly stated to be what her father sells, and implied to be the choice-of-cheese for other characters. 

To me, the scariest part of this movie was not the physical and emotional threat posed to Ree and her family, but the effects of poverty infecting every aspect of the setting. The director intentionally uses a lot of cool tones and low saturation to demonstrate this, but this paired with the cinematography makes every scene look anemic. The way this movie is shot is above television show level (medium shot reverse medium shot blah blah), but while some of the settings are very interesting in their physical layout, the camera hardly captures their full potential. 

Overall, I see the objective value in this film, even though I did not enjoy my experience. 

Amber Ventura. 

( anemia seemed the best comparison here, because watching this felt like bloodletting. )