By Michele Leight

In his introduction to the film premiere of "Winters Bone" at the Museum of Modern Art, Laurence Kardish said how much he loved the film:

"This is from someone who has been to Berlin and Cannes," he said, adding that it won the Grand Jury Prize for Drama and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. There was loud applause. Lawrence Kardish, who organized the film screening, is the Senior Curator of the Museum of Modern Arts Department of Film.

With actors Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes by her side, Debra Grannk, a native New Yorker and the director of the film said:

"This is a super-charged, special night to bring a film home," to more applause.

Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, a native of the Ozarks, "Winter's Bone" is a compelling tale about a prodigal drug-dealing father who sets his family up for disaster by committing a crime - cooking and dealing crystal meth - that will send him to jail. The film adaptation of "Winters Bone," (screenplay by Debra Granik and Annee Rosellini), is set in the stark landscape of the Ozark Mountains of Southern Missouri, where, like many rural communities in America, the local industry is crystal meth. The harsh realities facing the heroine, seventeen year old Ree Dolly, and her struggling family are framed without condescension in a no-frills, documentary style.

Like most tales where insurmountable odds are stacked up against the hero/heroine, there is a certain fascination in seeing how, or if, the obstacles will be overcome. With crystal meth production and drug clan bosses hanging like a dark cloud over the community, the prognosis does not look good for seventeen year old Ree Dolly who is now the head of the family, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Her uncle Teardrop is the anti-hero, played by John Hawkes. Both give magnificent performances, as does everyone else in this film, many of them local residents, not professional actors, which adds a compelling documentary authenticy to the film.

Malevolent Teardrop is the perfect foil for Ree Dolly's strong moral character. She is not like the heroines of the past that either faint or scream when bad things happen to them, expecting to be miraculously rescued. She is tough and independent, and does not buy into local meth culture "for now" she says, not passing judgment on those that do either. Teardrop is the brother of Ree Dolly's dad, who could be a character out of "Breaking Bad," cooking and dealing meth in secret with other members of the community, some of them distant family members. But that does not let him off easy when he is arrested and snitches on them. When he is released on bond, and disappears, the local sheriff arrives to let his daughter Ree know that she must find her dad and make sure he appears in court, because if he misses his court date, they will lose the house and land - which he put up as bond. This will leave his teenage daughter, her two young siblings and a mentally disabled mother facing homelessness.

When her dad fails to appear in court, the bail bondsman arrives and lets Ree know she has one more week before they claim the house - to slather on more tension - telling her he is just doing his job to get the judge off his back. He also tells her that a member of the community "with no name" paid the balance of her dad's bail bond in hard cash, because the house and land did not cover it. This tip begins a cottage to cottage - or compound to compound - search for anyone that might lead her to her dad, through backyards littered with oil drums and discarded plastic bottles, and outhouses, caravans and sheds, any of which might be harboring a meth lab - dangerous territory even without hostile occupants.

Finding her dad seems impossible even for determined Ree Dolly because no one in the community wants to get involved or offer information even when they suspect foul play. There is an unspoken code, like in Western movies, about betrayal. Turning someone in is heresy, an oath of silence must never be broken, and snitching can get a man killed.

Anxiety builds as Ree's father is nowhere to be found. Her state of mind and the bleakness of the family's future is mirrored in the chill Fall landscape, with trees losing their leaves against slate gray skies. Ree watches in quiet desperation as her young siblings bounce up and down on a large trampoline, ovlivious that such simple pleasures could soon disappear. Still a teenager, she is their surrogate mother, responsible for their security because her own mother is mentally disabled, an affliction brought on when her husband started dealing meth. In one scene Ree takes her mother for a walk in the woods she loves and fears losing, tearfully asking her to help her "this once," but she receives none. Before her dad disappeared, Ree had hoped to escape her community and join the army, like many rural teenagers, but those hopes are soon dashed by the reality that she cannot abandon her family now.

Even her tough uncle Teardrop is unwilling to get involved at first. In one terrifying scene he physically threatens her to stay away and not meddle in local feuds, although he does give her money. Destitution looms for a fragile family desperately holding on to the only dignity and security they have - their home, a humble yet appealing log cabin like many strewn across rural America, with wisps of smoke spiraling from a chimney and an American flag hanging in the front porch. The kind of home early pioneers built after they cleared the land of trees, using the logs for the house.

As she navigates the dark territory of local drug dealers and addicts, Ree also finds herself in the precarious position of negotiating with law-enforcement that are familiar with local justice and snitchers that often wind up dead. They urge her to find her father fast, dead or alive so she can save her roof. But she continues to confront a wall of silence, and worse. There are tough women in this film that do "man's work." However, even they are unsettled by the youth of Ree Daley, who comes after them for information about her father despite warnings about the danger of interfering in what locals regard as a private matter - settled between men.

"Ain't you got no man that can do this?" asks a clan boss's wife, exasperated at Ree's persistence.

No she hasn't, or rather one is a 10-year-old boy, and her dad has vanished. But there is her uncle, Teardrop, who emerges as a contemporary archetypal Western anti-hero. He is filled with repressed anger, understands the ways of local clans, does not seem to like anyone, and distrusts local law enforcement. Like many of the men and women in this community, he will not hesitate to settle matters physically or with a double-barreled shotgun. Ultimately it is Teardrop that helps Ree determine the fate of her family.

Guns are part of local customs and culture in the community. Carefully taught by Ree, her young siblings learn to use guns to shoot squirrels to eat when money and food supplies grow scarce. She does not hesitate to defend herself and her family with a gun when necessary either. They are on their own, isolated from mainstream society. Like frontier towns in Western movies, law enforcement cannot be counted on for help or will not get there in time if danger comes calling. The twist is that in "Winters Bone" the frontiersman with true grit is a seventeen year old, defiant female with a sassy mouth.

Although the clans depicted in this film seem unduly harsh and violent, they are no different to clans and gangs across the world that protect unlawful actions with silence, physical intimidation and often murder. The common denominator is despair and the threat of poverty, and the predators that profit from adversity. The women in this community persevere, however, and there is a camaraderie and deep friendship between Ree and some of them that is moving. When circumstances are endangered - by violence and homelessness - the women hold their own more than one might expect out of necessity, as they do in similar circumstances in many nations. .

Everyone in the community is not involved in drugs, and many show Ree and her family great kindness. Neighbors come by with boxes of food, lend her a truck because she has no car, stable her horse that is too expensive to feed, and offer a machine to help cut firewood - a dire necessity when electricity is unaffordable and wood burning fires take the chill out of frigid nights. In one scene Ree's hungry young brother looks longingly across at their neighbors who are butchering meat off a carcass. He says: "Should we ask?

"Never ask for what ought to be offered," Ree replies.

Later that night the neighbor's wife drops by, asks how they are doing and says: "We don't want you to think we have forgotten you." She deposits a carboard carton filled with meat and other provisions on the table, respectfully greets Ree's mentally disabled mother, and leaves.This quiet neighborliness and kindness is the saving grace of a grim story. Ree says "thank you" many times to those that reach out to her, with pride and dignity, and their support is important to her. They know what is going on but do not get involved beyond these acts of kindness because they fear the local clans.

Running parallel to the obvious hardships poverty stacks up against families like Ree Dolly's is the reality that there is no where else for them to go but onward along a dangerous and precarious track because there is no escape from it - except to derail. There are no special effects or magic wands to lighten the load on the protagonists or the viewer. Their bleak lives are not trivialized or idealized, and the hardships are unrelenting. Ree is exceptionally strong, even tough. For every Ree Dolly, one cannot help wonder about those in similar circumstances that cannot withstand the pressure. In a video at www.sundance.com the director Debra Granik says:

"I am always interested in characters that do not take no for an answer."

Novels and films like "Winters Bone" expose a widespread problem in rural America - the intersection of drugs, unemployment and poverty. "Winters Bone" takes a hard look at the impact of one of the most corrosive forces in society that tragically attract or relentlessly hunt down the struggling and the poor. In this story the destroyer is crystal meth, one of the most damaging and addictive of all drugs that wreaks havoc, which further undermines the often desperate and challenged circumstances of those on society's edge. Living so close together, with bills to pay and hungry mouths to feed, it seems only a matter of time before some will gravitate to cooking meth or dealing drugs after experiencing long hours at numbing, dead-end jobs for minimum wage.

At one point Teardrop tells Ree that her father "weakened" because of love for them, meaning he wanted to do more for them, bring home more bacon - give them a better life. This led him to cooking meth with other community members. Then he snitched on them and his life - and theirs - took an ugly turn.

No matter what comes her way, making sure her young siblings and mother are secure is what motivates Ree to go on:

"I would be lost without the weight of you two on my back," she says. The outcome of this wonderful film, which is full of surprises, should be experienced first hand in a movie theatre.

Filmed on location in the Ozark Mountains, not a movie set, with genuine locals playing many of the subsidiary characters, the film features plaintive regional ballads and folk songs accompanied by haunting fiddle and banjo music that echo the starkly beautiful land and its isolated communities. Memorable and moving, "Winters Bone" offers a slice of Americana that is likely to become a keepsake for the film collector's archive, along with such classics as "Days of Heaven" and "Mystic River," that also focus on survival and the interactions between good and evil in rural and small-town communities.