Winter's Bone

About once in two years I see a striking movie, something original. Recent examples include MONSTER'S BALL, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and MICHAEL CLAYTON. Last night I saw WINTER'S BONE, and I'd like to recommend it.

This is a film impossible for me to compare to others, but after a night of troubled sleep I 'm going to try. I'd say it combined EMMA (or CLUELESS) with the Orson Welles thriller TOUCH OF EVIL. It's like a novel of manners set among violent hill people who are cooking crank. A teenage girl sets out to keep her family together. . . .

Reactions to the movie will differ, I believe, according to one's background. A major part of my family left Kentucky four generations back in order to escape from the Hatfield--McCoy feud. We came from people somewhat like those depicted in the film, and I felt the cultural kinship. I saw something upbeat in the movie. My wife, with nothing like that in her background, experienced the film differently, perhaps because she lacks a "been down so long it looks like up to me" mentality. She found the movie grim but memorable.