Award-winning 'Winter's Bone' a compelling drama

Ree Dolly has the weight of the world on her shoulders: two young siblings who rely on her for everything, an out-of-it mom who's no help, and a missing, ne'r-do-well papa.

She's got to find him since he put the impoverished family's house up for his bail bond before disappearing. If the father fails to show for his hearing, the home is forfeit.

Problem is, no one knows anything. Or so they claim.

Ree is 17.

The hardscrabble lives and clannish resolve of folks in the southern Missouri backwoods is potently brought to life in writer-director Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone," a bleak, hyper-realistic drama about people who follow their own set of laws, chiefly a code of silence.

As Ree walks the countryside, moving from house to house seeking out neighbors and kin to lend aid, she is met with the kind of suspicion, fear and menace fed by too may scrapes with the law, too many secrets and too many private feuds.

Repeatedly warned to stop searching and go home, she risks her life to save her family from ruin.

But don't expect a by-the-numbers arc to this story.

Adapted from the novel by Daniel Woodrell, this 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner is buttressed by acting so naturalistic it hardly seems like acting at all. You just have to remind yourself that it is set in the present day, where things have changed little deep in the Ozark hills.

Jennifer Lawrence ("The Burning Plain") is pitch-perfect as the sturdy, strong-willed Ree, a kid surrounded by a community of mean-spirited outlaws and their weary, beat-down women, some of whom are more dangerous than the men.

She's smart, perceptive and determined, yet as the tale develops, there is the nagging sense that while she may yet prevent the loss of her home, she may not escape a way of life that will see her acquiesce, and worse.

Only her dad's older brother, Teardrop (a misnomer if ever there was one) gives her the time of day, and even that comes with a veiled threat. Lean, hawkish character John Hawkes ("American Gangster") is utterly believable in the role, as is most of the rest of an impeccably chosen cast.

Well shot (entirely on location) by Michael McDonough, "Winter's Bone" is compelling in its way, if unrelievedly grim, with a macabre moment that isn't quite necessary. It's a film that understands its people very well, though only a few of the characters are rendered as more than walking attitudes or two-dimensional props.

Rather, apart from Ree, the script focuses almost wholly on two or three unadorned characters who bring total commitment to their parts.

Chillingly so.

Reach Bill Thompson at 937-5707.