Winter's Bone

A measure of the sheer quality of Winter's Bone is that it completely transcends the hillbilly cliches at its heart. The insular Ozark community all seem to be inter-related to varying degrees, and operates according to its own laws (the sheriff and local bounty hunter know this and are suitably cautious) Almost everyone 17 year old Ree contacts as she searches for her missing father is some kind of blood-relation -which doesn't necessarily mean anyone's willing to help her - and she shares the community's inherent distrust of both outsiders and the law. If her father fails to turn up in court, the house and woodland he put up as a bond will be forfeit.
Ree's already taken on the mantle of adult of the family, giving up school to raise her siblings and look after her catatonic mother yet the power of the film hinges on her youth. The interview with a sympathetic army recruitment sergeant neatly illustrates both her naivety and her basic resilience, and the astonishing air of menace that permeates the film only emphasises her vulnerability. It's one of those rare films where you genuinely fear for the safety of the main character, with the womenfolk being just as likely to inflict violence as the men. Even Ree's uncle is an unsettlingly dangerous figure. He looks frail yet can face down a group of much bigger men without even making a real threat. And the landscape itself is an essential part of the film, rather than merely a backdrop. Only such land could produce such faces and such simmering threat.
And yet it's not unremittingly bleak. This is also a world where people gather to create the most beautiful music, and where family feeling occasionally trumps self-preservation. There's never any doubt about the love between Ree and her siblings, but there's also basic kindness hidden in the most unexpected places. If the fate of the father is never really in doubt, it doesn't diminish the tension one jot (though it's never actually a whodunit as such) and the subtle ending manages to be both optimistic and laden with hints of foreboding, of future retribution and tragedy to come.