Some Bitch Reviews a Netflix Movie

Winter’s Bone

Good googamugum, filterinos. This movie will get your heart pumping. This powerful tale of a teenager from the heart of the impoverished Ozark region fighting like hell to keep what little she and her family have left has come to Netflix. Well, actually it did a while ago, but if you haven’t seen it yet, this is the one I recommend for your next night in. It stars Jennifer Lawrence…

You know, The Hunger Games chick

…as Ree, a seventeen-year-old who learns she is about to lose the home that she shares with her younger brother, sister and mentally-ill mother. That is, unless she can produce her shiftless meth-cooker father to show up for trial and complete the deal with the bondsman. This takes her to some terrifying, bone-chilling places. Oh shit, you think that’s why they call it that??

Anyhoo, one of the things that makes this movie truly remarkable is how intensely real looking it is. Every character and every scene wears the heavy look of absolute, abject poverty. But it isn’t all dark, either. A lot of scenes, especially those involving a good Samaritan pie-faced neighbor, show what us what in some places it really means to be someone’s neighbor. Those are really the moments that anchor you right into the film. And for fans of lame-ass, wiener characters like Bella Swan, I invite you to take a gander as what a strong female character, not to mention expert female director, looks like.  I, for one, like this chick.   She has proven herself a very technically skilled actress. Fans will remember her from Hunger Games, and I think you people will especially feel a deep appreciation for her skill. From Ree to Katniss Everdeen, J.Law has managed to create an image of what toughness is. Games intended to be a major summer blockbuster, so Katniss is a lot more commercially palatable. Well I guess that’s what you would call it. She went very underutilized in Games, but that’s another bitchy article maybe I’ll write someday. This is an example of a director really knowing how to give her actors room to act. I’m teeming over trying to contain spoiler alerts, but I just can’t do it to you. Better you know nothing about the shit you are about to see.  Okay, fuck it, here’s one. At one point, she is carrying the severed hands of a close relative through the police station in a plastic grocery bag.

What you carry Cheerios around in

And how she got them is an even bigger jaw dropper. This is hands down a very good and very entertaining movie. It’s important to see these kinds of movies and see how different people in different places live. We do a lot of making fun of the Midwest and the south, and it’s almost all completely justifiable.  Hell, most of the time it’s damn near impossible not to do – see the article on Honey Boo Boo Child. But maybe we can be a little dismissive of the harsh conditions that exist in places like the Ozarks and along the Appalachian trail. I’ve never eaten squirrel. I could never imagine the need to. But it is necessary for these people to know how to hunt and gut one of those darling little creatures who scamper cutely up trees and carry diseases. The lives of hillbillies. See it. See it soon.-SR