Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is out to find her dad. He's missed his trial and put the house up as a bond. This means Ree, her mentally handicapped mum and her two younger siblings are going to be out on the street. Seeing as the streets in Missouri are made of gravel and fucking cold this time of year she decides to hunt down her dad and bring him in for trial. Shit gets real. The end.
Loved this film. Jennifer Lawrence's performance is definitely one of note. The way she showed the character's fragility, beauty and stern determination was inspired. Who knew that there were so many strong female roles that would be contenders in this years oscars? Feminists. Feminists did. They knew all along.
But seriously, this seventeen year old girl is forced to take her entire family under her wing and does so without a moment's hesitation. It's not bravery, it's not machismo or a false sense of righteousness; it's simply her duty and she does it accordingly. She's magnificent as the hard-headed girl who wont take no for an answer - simply because she doesn't resort to masculine imitation or the use of 'feminine wiles' to get her way. She wants what she wants and simply wont stop until she gets it. This would be a great character to play for any budding actor - but Lawrence pulls it off particularly well.
I would say the only flaw of this movie is that it moves too slow. The story is relatively simple. It focuses on a poor, disadvantaged people of Central America in the penetrating and solemn way that Michael Moore's films often aspire to. In fact, much of the scenery reminded me a lot of his film Roger & Me - and in many ways it's an expansion on the stories of desperation related therein. As interesting as this is (and believe me, I understand this was the point) the story is long - but essentially a mystery. Take out all the social milieu, scenery, political commentary and desperation and you're left with an episode of Ms Marple in what looks like Alaska. I mean, it's not dissimilar to Fargo, but at least Fargo got to the point quick enough. It was, I think, the only thing that stopped this film from being a ten.
It's great in that it explored an area of American society that's not normally covered - by any sort of film, let alone a fictional one. The characters were real, gritty and dirty. There wasn't any forgiveness for them. They weren't bad characters, just desperate, and desperate people do desperate things. I thought that the conversation with the recruitment officer - though entirely unnecessary for the plot - showed a good insight into the social strata. The military wasn't painted badly and actually was seen as a 'way out' for these people. In short, it gave some sort of a voice to the desperate members of the 'fly-over' states who are usually ignored in such works.
This was a really good film. It's nominated for Best Picture and Best Female Actor at this year's Oscars so I'd get out and see it. 9/10.
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