Somehow award-winning movie Winter’s Bone was not on my radar. Perhaps a bleaker than bleak slice of life movie about inbred families in the Ozarks failed to catch my eye. But it got great reviews and was the Grand Jury winner at Sundance so it seemed worth a look. And I like downbeat films. Winter’s Bone was billed as an unflinching look at life in the Appalachians and although it was fiction could have been a documentary. The spellbinding drama captured a way of life that I didn’t know existed and showed an intermarried, isolated group of people who time and industry have left behind. The story centered around 17 year old Ree Dolly who’s searching for her missing crank/meth dealing father. She has to find him or his body as proof of his death in order to keep the house and land he put for bail. We follow her search as she’s forced to seek help from an almost impenetrable community that she’s not quite a part of. Ree, played perfectly by Jennifer Lawrence is captivating. She’s in nearly every scene and doesn’t hit a false note as we witness the quiet desperation and heartbreak of someone so young forced to do whatever it takes to save her family. There are some gut wrenching moments and as hard as they were to watch, seemed completely plausible in such stark surroundings. It has the same gritty feel as another fantastic but somewhat under the radar movie Frozen River so two big thumbs up for another thought provoking original movie