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movie review - Winter's Bone

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

This is the story of a girl in an impoverished mountain district who faces the loss of the family home - and the paying woodlot attached. It's an area of real menace, controlling - and controlled by - the trade in amphetamines and opioids. She has to find and return her surely dead father's corpse to save it and keep the remnants of family together, small siblings and a brain damaged mother.

Her effort proves unrelentingly difficult, dealing with the many desperate and hard-bitten characters in the area to dig up the truth about her father and his disappearance despite an overwhelming culture of silence. The story is resolved in a way that feels authentic and really sticks to you.

The direction and acting in this film is superb and the cinematography is spare as befits the time of the year and the dreary dead landscape. Perfection!

Strongly recommended.