'Winter's Bone' - Weekly Film Analysis By: Unknown 1 comment

'Winter's Bone' (2010) is an indie drama written and directed by Debra Granik. It is a film adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's 2006 novel of the same name and stars Jennifer Lawrence as the teenage protagonist Ree Dolly (17) who is on a journey to find her drug - dealing father in order to save her mentally ill mother and two younger siblings from eviction.

The film explores the themes of family, poverty, struggle and the law through the use of micro features such as performance, as well as through it’s cinematography. For example the dull, washed-out colour palate of the film which helps to support it’s bleak, haunting mood and story.  

Winter's Bone won 63 awards and was also nominated for a further 122 including four Oscars in 2011; Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay,  Best Supporting Actor (John Hawkes) and Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence).

This was therefore a very pivotal moment in Jennifer Lawrence's acting career, as she was nominated for this award at just twenty years old which is a lot younger than, not only the other nominees that year, but also the majority of nominees for that category in the history of the Academy Awards. Not surprisingly, therefore, the award for Best Actress in a leading role went to then 30 year old, Natalie Portman for her role in ‘Black Swan’.

However, even though Lawrence didn't win the award, this was clearly still a very important and significant moment in her career up until that time as from then on Lawrence’s career really began to pick up even more with her landing roles such as Raven/Mystique in X-men (2011) and Katniss Everdeen in ‘The Hunger Games’ (2012) in the following few years.

Likewise, just three years after her role in ‘Winter's Bone’, Lawrence won her first Oscar, again for the category of Best Actress in a leading role, for her performance in ‘Silver Linings’ (2012).

In hindsight it could therefore be argued that her performance in ‘Winter's Bone’ and the reception of it, was what started this positive evolution in her career.

Overall, ‘Winter’s Bone’ was a very emotional and hard hitting coming of age film which cleverly explored the themes of  family, poverty, struggle and the law, as well as showing the intense and inspirational growth of Jennifer Lawrence’s character Ree’s strength, femininity and self identity through her determination, perseverance and durability.