7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
Seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods. Challenging her outlaw kin's code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Garret Dillahunt, Sheryl Lee, Tate TaylorDrama | 100% |
Psychological thriller | 39% |
Mystery | 13% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
And you thought your family was dysfunctional.
When James Dickey’s novel Deliverance hit the best seller lists in 1970, and then was followed by the acclaimed 1972 John Boorman film adaptation, the title became synonymous with backwoods hillbillies with evil intent. It’s a little odd that somehow the public at large never really thought about the meaning of Dickey’s title, and the at the very least escape it implied. Of course deliverance in its richer connotations can also suggest liberation or even salvation, and that kind of deliverance is front and center in Debra Granik’s disturbing film Winter’s Bone. Oh, and there are most definitely backwoods hillbillies with evil intent, as well as (perhaps against all odds) an iconic banjo. Winter’s Bone won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and seems poised to capture an Oscar nomination (if voters’ memories are that long—not always a sure thing) for breakout star Jennifer Lawrence, who invests the role of Ozark teenager Ree Dolly with the sort of grit and determination that would be completely at home in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Winter’s Bone may not have the subtle intellectualism of Steinbeck, and in fact owes more to the Southern Gothic tradition of Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and even Dickey himself, but the resilience of the human spirit under duress, always a major Steinbeck theme, is part and parcel of this riveting story about a young girl forced to endure a horrific odyssey among her Ozark kin when her father, an outlaw meth “cooker,” puts her family house and property at stake by forking it over to a bail bondsman and then summarily disappearing as his court date nears.
Winter's Bone is given a chilly, almost monochromatic looking image, delivered on this Blu-ray via an AVC codec in 1080p and 1.78:1. Granik and DP Michael McDonough have cast this film in a variety of grays and pale blues, and even fleshtones appear desaturated. The entire film in fact seems virtually one step away from black and white. That gives things a stark, often oppressive, beauty, but it also means that some detail is lost, especially in the film's many dark scenes. Outdoor shots fare best here, where the natural lighting allows good depth of field and some excellent fine detail in close-ups. The many interior shots, which similarly seem lit naturally a lot of the time, are clad in a lot of shadow and intentional murkiness and the low contrast means backgrounds just kind of disappear if they're not even minimally lit. That actually helps to give this film its claustrophobic ambience, but some hi-def aficionados will no doubt take the Blu-ray to task for this situation, when it was obviously an intentional choice by Granik and her DP.
Winter's Bone offers a very subtle, yet insistently immersive, lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that benefits both from the ambient environmental sounds which populate the soundtrack, as well as the gorgeous and haunting traditional folk music which is used both as underscore and, occasionally, onscreen as well. For a film this deliberately small and ostensibly quiet (despite bouts of violence), the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offers a wealth of nice ambient noises, especially as Ree makes her way through hill and dale. The crackling of fire, leaves rustling in the wind and other sounds of the woods fill the surrounds quite invitingly. There's also a nice differentiation in reverb and overall ambience between the outdoor and indoor segments. When things do turn toward violence, this track supports the increased dynamics effortlessly, and the infrequent, though very frightening, use of LFE also is handled very well. This isn't an overtly showy track by any means, but like the film itself, it works its subliminal spell incredibly effectively.
Several excellent extras supplement the main feature.
A quietly engaging Commentary by Granik and DP McDonough offers a wealth of background information, though truth be told, Granik's sometimes halting, extremely understated talking style was hard to listen to for an hour and a half.
The Making of 'Winter's Bone' (720p; 46:38) has some great behind the scenes footage, including long segments of props being discussed and scenes being set up.
Four Deleted Scenes (720p; 10:07) aren't just the scenes themselves, they also include director Granik giving notes and getting her actors ready to shoot.
Hardscrabble Elegy (SD; 2:59) is a score excerpt by composer Dickon Hinchliffe set to wintry scenes.
Music Credits provides a text extra giving information on the many source cues utilized in the film.
The theatrical trailer rounds out the supplements.
Winter's Bone is a disturbing film that nonetheless manages against all odds to be invested with at least a modicum of optimism. Jennifer Lawrence emerges as one of the most startling new talents in years with a nuanced and provocative portrayal as put upon teen Ree Dolly, and director Debra Granik manages to tread a very fine line between exploiting these often distasteful characters while at the same time offering a realistic portrayal of the Ozark backwoods. Highly recommended.
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