Winter's Bone vs Julia

Ree lives in a tiny house in the woods of southern Missouri with her younger brother and sister, and a catatonic mother who cannot care for them. Reference is made to the mother taking pills that don’t work, and to past stress, but no name is given to her condition (it’s doubtful she ever saw a doctor). Ree’s father is missing, and wanted in court on charges pertaining to his work cooking meth. He’s posted the family house and land as bond, and if he doesn’t show, the state will collect, leaving Ree and her charges out in the cold, surrounded by her father’s allies and enemies (good luck telling them apart). Ree has a week to find him. If he’s alive, she has to convince him to show up in court. If he’s dead, she has to prove it.

Luckily, the bounty hunter working on her dad’s case is Ree’s old high school boyfriend, and even though they can’t stand each other now, once they’re on the road, the old sparks start to fly! Just kidding.

Ree walks all over, trying to get someone to talk, to answer just a single question. She’s greeted with suspicion, hostility and violence, even—especially—from relatives, who fear losing their own connections and incomes should Ree’s father be found guilty. Don’t believe me that her family’s bad news? Her uncle is named Teardrop. There are charitable moments here and there; a friend loans her a ride, neighbors bring over food, but mainly Ree’s on her own. While trying to find a lead into her father’s disappearance/escape, she begins to teach her younger siblings survival skills, like hunting and cooking. She’s not preparing them for adulthood, but rather for a childhood alone.

Ree is the heroine of Winter’s Bone. She’s played by Jennifer Lawrence in a performance so quietly authentic, you’d have more luck finding something similar in a documentary, than in another fictional movie. There’s nothing cute or movie hick about Ree. I mean, I like Cold Mountain and all, don’t get me wrong. The cast of Winter’s Bone is a mix of locals serving in bit parts and as extras, and seasoned character actors who blend right in. Word has it Winter’s Bone was filmed on location, in actual homes, with the actors wearing clothes supplied by locals. As a result, there’s no distinguishing between the real deal and the actors. The cool trick of Winter’s Bone is that none of the locals are exploited or made the butt of a joke. Not only do the character actors mix in with the setting, the natives all come off as pros. Best among either group are John Hawkes, as the menacing Teardrop, and Dale Dickey, terrifying as Merab, a distant relative who stands between Ree and the answer she wants so desperately. Dickey’s at once sympathetic and repellant. She’s a heartland thug, a mobster’s muscle and moll in one tiny, tan package. The female Joe Pesci is alive and well and waiting for her Melissa Leo moment. I’ll be first in line to buy a ticket. Merab should be avoided at all costs, yet she’s necessary. Nothing scarier than a monster that has to be dealt with, when walking past her house would be so much easier.

With Winter’s Bone, director Debra Granik has blended so many genres—western, film noir, horror—that you’d think the movie would be muddled in places, or too clever, like it was one of those movies where kids play gangsters, or criminals drop too many Tarantinoesque monologues. There are nice touches throughout, like Ree trying to join the Army under the impression that she’ll get money up front. And there are sly bits of history between Ree and her friend Gail, who has a child and a husband, but more importantly, a truck. Granik balances the heavy themes of Winter’s Bone (homelessness, starvation, murder) without making it a chore to watch. It’s a chilling, effective drama, with a smart script that ends at the exact moment it should.

Julia, like Winter’s Bone, is an indie about a tough female character on a mission with a strict deadline. Unlike Ree, however, the title character of Julia is an amoral, selfish, dishonest drunk. She’s fun to watch in a movie, but if you know anyone like her, good luck.

Julia (Tilda Swinton) has been offered a job: kidnap the young son of the man who took him, and return him to his mother. The mother has custody, so technically the father kidnapped him first. Julia’s doing a good deed. Oh, and the father’s rich. And she keeps the kid, and demands ransom from the father instead. Julia’s awful to the kid, tying him to a radiator behind a couch in her motel room, or cramming him into the trunk of her car. At one point we think he’s dying, because Julia loses him in the desert, with no water. Julia would be an unbearably cynical movie if not for the performance of Tilda Swinton. This is one hell of a ballsy show. Aside from your weirder Nicolas Cage movies, you won’t see anything approaching Tilda Swinton in Julia. She fidgets, flinches, stutters, screams, shakes, pukes, you name it. Her Julia is a physical and mental wreck, but nothing she does seems like a stunt. Swinton makes her a real person. An obnoxious person? Oh hell yes. But flesh and blood. She never does anything that comes off like over-acting, because from the first scene she’s making her own rules. That an actor could go that far out, that over the top, and still never upstage the character is not only impressive, it’s essential viewing. Unlike Winter’s Bone, there’s not as much to appreciate beyond that lead performance. Winter’s Bone is completely plausible. In Julia, you’ll wonder how the characters lived long enough to wind up in a movie in the first place.

Winter’s Bone: A

Julia: B