Winter's Bone (2010)

"Hillbilly Noir" from director Debra Granik. Stars Jennifer Lawrence as a dirt poor Missouri teenager in danger of losing her shit shack of a house because her dad used the home as collateral for bail (he was arrested for manufacturing meth). She looks for him, going from shack to shack, each one with more washers, dryers, and abandoned cars in the front yard than the last, to make sure he shows up for court. After a while, she realizes he was in deeper shit than with the law and starts to wonder if he is even alive. Every year or so, there seems to be another one of these "shit-kicker gothic" offerings aimed at the art house crowd. These are characters and situations the audience (mostly urbanites, I assume) are not familiar with. I suppose if they were ever interested in the middle part of this country, they certainly wouldn't be after seeing this. I know I never want to go to Missouri now (well, truth be told, I had no desire to begin with). Jennifer Lawrence is excellent, as is John Hawkes as her uncle and Dale Dickey as a female henchman. Interesting, but not tremendously so. It's all so ...glum I guess is the word. Actors with greasy hair and dirt smudges on their faces, bare trees, gray photography. It's a bit much.