Winter's Bone (2010)

This is the movie that really launched Jennifer Lawrence's career, and she certainly deserved the attention and credit she got, it is a true breakout performance. Winter's Bone is based on a novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell and is directed by Debra Granik, who has a very small cinematic canon of only three features, but I should probably check those other two movies out because this was an excellent film. Set among the rural poor of the Missouri Ozarks this film reminded me a lot of my mission, when I spent a good amount of time among the rural poor of the Appalachian south. This is a film about the quest for survival, Jennifer Lawrence's Ree Dolly, who is only 17, must search for her missing father, a sometimes meth maker, when his not making a court appearance could cost the family their home, where she lives with her two younger siblings and her disabled mother. The search is not easy, and there is a scene in this film, and you know it if you've seen it, that is horrifying in a way that I have never been horrified by a film before. Lawrence was Oscar nominated for this at 20, and John Hawkes, who players her uncle in the film, was also nominated, both deservingly so. Calling a film unforgettable is probably an overused phrase, but this movie would be hard to forget. ****