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Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right

Posted by Daryl Zero (A) on August 7, 2010 at 16:50:05

I don't go to many movies in theater but both kids were away and my wife and I decided to see both of these. They are similar in that they both attempted to be natural and character driven without a lot of overblown stuff (more in the TKAAR) but totally opposite in the worlds portrayed.

Winter's Bone shows a 17 year old girl Ree Dolly played nicely by Jennifer Lawrence stuck out in not much more with a cabin caring for her mentally vacant mother and two siblings. Her father (and most of the family tree) is involved in drug cooking and is gone according to the terminator, er, sheriff who says that their father put up the family cabin as a bond so they will lose it if he doesn't make his court date. Ree stoically and relentlessly approaches family members to try to find her father. Her vague familial relation gets her in the door but you quickly get the idea that the drug culture is more important and dangerous than the family. John Hawkes does a great job playing Ree's uncle "Teardrop" who has his own agenda. I didn't know it was John Hawkes until the credits and he did a great job playing a guy who seemed intensely dangerous and scary. It takes a while to understand the motivations and that is a lot of what the movie is about. It moves slowly and focuses on little things including the culture which in one sense is taking care of neighbors and family and in another sense, deadly if you step out of line. The dialog was very terse and had the feeling that it ad libbed in that there wasn't much to it and seemed very natural. So it was either ad libbed or the writing was really done well getting some naturalistic performances. I thought this was a really excellent film.

The Kids Are All Right was the story of a gay couple with two children 18 year old girl (Joni) and 15 year old boy (Laser) each mothered by one of the couple with the same sperm donor. This movie tells the tale of the family coming to grips with several issues. The main thing going on is that couple is having trouble. They are in a rut and the seams are fraying on the marriage. The couple is played by Annette Bening (Nic)who is the successful doctor and control freak and Julianne Moore plays Jules who is the pie in the sky dabbler and who is unsure and getting lost in this relationship. The second thing going on is that the 18 year old, Joni, is about to leave for college. The moms (as the children call them) are two yings with no yang and they even annoy each other with their double teaming sensitivity. Both kids seem pissed off at their parents for the maternal smothering and Laser is hanging around with a kid who is trouble probably from an awful dad but anyhow, will lead himself and anyone else down a black hole. Joni is feeling sexual but her best male friend does not see her sexually at all so she is very tense. This dynamic gets teased when Joni (at her brother's insistence) calls the donor agency to get in touch with the sperm donor who is Paul played by Mark Ruffalo. Paul turns out to be a "guy" who has many of the characteristics of the entire family. He is like Jules in that he did not finish school and like Nic in that he is successful in what he does which is growing food and running a restaurant. He is an earthy guy and seems to have been given the magic film power of having most of the ladies in the film wanting to bed him. Upon meeting his progeny, he gets wistful and wants to be involved in their lives. This is resented by the moms but at first for no reason other than they don't want him around. The connection he makes is more with Joni oddly enough and he provides sensible observations about the moms' interactions with the kids which is met with more anger from the moms. I won't go into the rest of the interactions but to say that the movie shows the strength of the family and the characters progress or not at a decent pace. There are parts of this that feels really forced but I really liked all of the characters and there wasn't anything that seemed too far out so it made the movie enjoyable.

At the end of the day (and it was 12:30 am after viewing both), Winter's Bone is the much better picture but I recommend both.

Edits: 08/07/10 08/08/10

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