Review: Winter's Bone (15)****

Audiences have been sitting up and taking notice of this bleak trailer trash drama in which a 17-year-old girl stumbles through her own investigation into the disappearance of her no-good father.

An indie phenomenon with a central performance of quiet intensity by Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone focuses on an insular community in rural America in which facts are hidden beneath half-truths and bare-faced lies and families look after their own despite being aware of a litany of accepted horrors.

Ree Dolly (Lawrence) is the eldest child in a family of three youngsters who acts as mother hen to her siblings. In the absence of her father, she struggles to make ends meet and is thrust into an even bigger nightmare when the local sheriff informs her that her home has been put up as collateral for father's bail. If he fails to show for his trial, they will all be evicted. With her home at stake, she must locate her father but it's hard to prise information from her neighbours. And with dear old dad involved in manufacturing crystal meth, Ree rapidly gets in over her head.

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Ree lives in the 21st century but her hard-scrabble existence could be easily transposed to a world that existed 100 years ago.

Director and co-writer Debra Granik has fashioned a powerful portrait of America's modern underclass. She places her protagonists in the midst of a cold, grey landscape; there is no succour here, just hardship and penury.

There are whispers of an Oscar campaign for this riveting and poignant drama. Fingers crossed that they reach the right ears.

On staggered release