Ree Dolly is smart enough to know not to have sex at her young age and have a child. She is in a world of poverty and goes to school with friends who are barely out of puberty and strapped down with a baby. The tragedy though is with her mother being basically an invalid incapable of caring for herself, Ree is forced to be a mother anyway for her baby brother and sister, both of whom can barely cook let alone fend for themselves. It's a horrible sick irony that plagues the life of Ree, the oldest of three children who is basically the mother, daughter, and guardian of her household, forced to live day by day and is often so desperate she has to rely on the neighbors to feed her family and give them electricity, but is too proud to ask for a hand out. Ree is a hero of the modern film era, a young girl with her head on straight dropped in to a world where she can do nothing but care for her own and has no way out of her domestic situation. In another environment she'd rule the world (she sacrifices a potentially excellent military career for her brother and sister), but sadly she's just a simple farm girl in the woods with a humongous heart too proud to ask for help, but too kind to turn away stray dogs who appear at her house hungrier than she is.

Ree is a hero not only for feminism but for the impoverished as Jennifer Lawrence gives a riveting performance as this character who takes her pain and misery in stride. Hunger, cold, loneliness are all taken with a fierce determination and she tailors her brother and sister to charge in to life's misery head on, schooling them in the ways of living day by day and fending for themselves, even as Dee leaves them behind to find her father. This is a protagonist facing a world where women's roles are reduced to serving the men and acting as punching bags, and when confronted with them, they often question her resolve and insist that she should act as a woman and find a man to search for her father. Dee's will is never broken though as she endures the elements and the vicious land to find her dad, and resists the pitfalls of her family surrounding her, all of whom have fallen victim to drugs, crime, and perversion. There's a very foreboding element present in "Winter's Bone" where Ree is always teaching her little brother and sister how to hunt, gut animals, and the like and this keeps audiences guessing and hoping for the best in what Ree may presume to be valuable lessons taught in case of her imminent death.

John Hawkes is also excellent as Ree's distant uncle Teardrop, an erratic coke fiend and wife abuser who warns Ree violently to back off of her search for her father, and soon takes an interest in finding him and joins in Ree's search when the consequences of her mission become rigorous and ever more dangerous. "Winter's Bone" may not be a Western in the strictest sense, but deep down it is indeed a genre fixture with a courageous heroine, a plot that takes its heroine on a journey through the shadows and wastelands running in to shifty characters and menacing powers, and an ending that leaves us with the picture of a warrior who has yet to finish her journey with a world waiting at her doorstep that has to wait while she raises and guards two upstanding individuals in a world where innocence is quickly destroyed.

Director Debra Granik's drama is a masterpiece, and a gem worthy of Oscar gold with its finger firmly pressed on the Western genre all the while introducing a modern heroine and warrior woman for the impoverished tasked with doing everything she can and risking life and limb just so she and her family can live for one more day. It's an incredible movie and one I highly suggest for all audiences.