Avis Metacritic

For all the horror, it's the drive toward life, not the decay, that lingers in the mind. As a modern heroine, Ree Dolly has no peer, and Winter's Bone is the year's most stirring film.

Again, Granik has foregrounded a bold woman, expertly balanced between fearlessness and Ree's own private nervousness.

One of the unshowiest and most true-blooded epics of Americana you're ever likely to see.

Granik has no taste for noir archness, opting for a chilly, shot-on-decaying-locations naturalism that feels as lived-in as Lawrence's performance.

Winter's Bone so far past any notion of formula or precedent that comparison is a futile exercise. This film is a thing all its own.

Raw but utterly enveloping.

Winter's Bone is unforgettable. It means to shake you, and does.

In the end, the most interesting aspect of this quiet, sometimes frustrating, sometimes thrilling film is the way it teases out the intricate power structures that flourish even in as godforsaken (and lovely) a place as the Ozarks.

Grim backwoods tale takes its time building momentum.

Debra Granik's Winter's Bone is one of those movies -- like last year's inner-city down-a-thon, "Precious" -- that can't quite make a distinction between profundity and plain old bleakness.