Winter's Bone

    It's amazing what you can do for so little money. I can't help but think of so-called blockbuster movies like Avatar or 2012 that feature enormous budgets but little creativity and depth. They also lack a sufficient human element to keep us (me, anyway) invested in the story. Meanwhile, films like this, that feature a budget of just 2 million dollars, can create so much with so little and give us interesting characters that actually bear some scrutiny and investment.
    I commented once on how there's virtually no female characters in modern cinema that interest me because they're either too shallow, the out-of-control "strong" woman, or simply, uninteresting to me. Finally I can add another female character to my list of favorites which includes Mattie Ross from True Grit, and Helen Prejean from Dead Man Walking. Ree is the kind of person anyone would like for a big sister and rightly so. Sure, I'm sure she doesn't like having to run the whole family because her dad is off cooking meth all the time and her mom is mentally unwell, but she still does it. She constantly makes sacrifices for her family is is really never rewarded for any of it. Even the end of the film promises no hope for a happier life for Ree and her family, aside from keeping their house, but she still sticks to it. Characters like this are probably in the single digits in modern cinema.
     But my favorite character in the film had to be Teardrop, her uncle. I hesitate to pin this guy down because he's so complicated. He's a meth ( and who knows what else) addict, but he comes to his families rescue when they need him most. He seems to have a violent past, but he still has some "kind-uncle" in him. A typical Hollywood film would have simply portrayed him as a no-good uncle who becomes the good uncle in the end. Not here. We really don't know what this guy is going to do. And that's what makes him so interesting.
    Bottom line, maybe Hollywood can learn from films like this. A huge budget might not be the answer to a great movie (though it can help). Maybe good characters, story, and a little creativity do the trick.