Lindsay Renner, Advertising Editor
In history, there have been several incidences of women assuming positions normally held by men when the men in the society were away or unable to perform their duties for any reason. While the men in 2010’s Oscar nominated film Winter’s Bone were physically present, they were too embedded in drug culture to act as a patriarchy would deem, and so the women stepped in to fulfill their roles, but none as effectively as the film’s heroine Ree.
The SLU Film Society presented a screening of this film on Monday, Mar. 28 as a part of both the society’s ongoing Core Values Film Series, in addition to Women’s History Month. Associate professor of English, Donald Pharr, felt this film was an apt choice for both the month, and to highlight the value of community, the last value to be presented in the films shown throughout the year.
“When traditional community structures- family or otherwise-fail, who takes over? Women,” said Pharr. “Matriarchies come to exist when the men are not present for whatever reason, and these men are definitely not present because of drugs, whether because of addiction to them, incarceration because of them or death as a result of the use of them.”
Ree, portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence, is a 17 year old girl living in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri. At the film’s opening, the viewer observes Ree caring for her two younger siblings. Her mother, though present, has gone insane, and is unable to do as much as talk to her two youngest children, let alone provide for them as a parent should. Ree then becomes a mother to both her siblings as well as a caregiver for her mother. It is quickly learned that Ree’s father, Jessup, has been released from prison on bond. Unable to provide money for his bond, Jessup had put up the family’s home as collateral, and Ree is told that if he does not show up for his court proceedings, the family will lose their house. She is then charged with finding her father, who appears to have dropped off the face of the earth.
Although it may be easy to view Ree as an adult, it is important to remember that she is little more than a child who has been flung headlong into adult situations that may have proved unbearable for anyone of lesser maturity. One scene in particular highlights the two options Ree has: she goes to her high school and sees girls learning to care for babies in one room, and participating in ROTC in the other. The limitations of her locality and her home life may keep her from leaving, but they do not prevent her from doing good for the purpose of keeping her family together.
Although Ree’s father was involved with a group of men before his death, the women tied to these men prove to be more important in developing the film’s off-kilter sort of community. The same women who beat Ree senseless for coming after her father in one scene bring her to her father’s body in another, and in a particularly gruesome show, help her obtain the physical proof necessary to show that he has died: his hands.
Although a film about crystal meth and its effects on a family does not seem an obvious choice for a film on community, Winter’s Bone paints an apt picture of one girl’s dedication to providing for those she loves. As Pharr said quite simply, “It sticks with you.”
