Book vs. Film: Winter's Bone

In honor of tomorrow night's Oscar ceremonies, I'll be doing Book vs. Film posts the next two days--covering films that are current nominees.  Final scoring, as always, is based on a ten-point-total system.  Think of it as having ten good pieces to be distributed on the opposing arms of a scale.  Based on which medium is preferred, the scales will be tipped--either slightly or significantly--in that direction (if both versions are valued on an equal level, they will each receive a score of five).  First up:

Book:

Film:

To me, perhaps the most surprising aspect of the 2010 film version is its under-emphasis of the winter season foregrounded by its title.  There's not a speck of snow to be seen in these Ozarks (I'm assuming that's because of budgeting considerations).  Daniel Woodrell's 2006 novel is much more overtly wintry, with the season transcending the status of setting to serve almost as an antagonistic character.  The harshness of the climate is conveyed through wonderfully descriptive passages, such as the following: "Clouds looked to be splitting on distant peaks, dark rolling bolts torn around the mountaintops to patch the blue sky with grim.  Frosty wet began to fall, not as flakes nor rain but as tiny white wads that burst as drops landing and froze a sudden glaze atop the snow.  The bringing wind rattled the forest, shook limb against limb, and a wild tapping noise carried all about.  Now and then a shaking limb gave up and split from the trunk to land below with a sound like a final grunt" (p. 58).

The film does a fine job of depicting its characters as people with real lives.  These hardly-well-off residents of the Ozarks aren't unevolved cavedwellers.  They engage in activities the audience can identify with: going to auctions, throwing birthday parties, playing music and singing songs.  Indeed, both the film and the novel on which it is based deserve credit for never pandering to "hick" stereotypes.

That said, the novel delves much more deeply into the background of the characters, not only as individuals but also as a clan.  Woodrell shows the Dollys to have strong roots in the region, and his account of the clan's history and ancient religious beliefs gives the book a mythic scope reminiscent of the work of Cormac McCarthy.

In the film, Woodrell's characters are memorably embodied; Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes are amazing in the roles of Ree Dolly and Uncle Teardrop, respectively.  The gaunt Hawkes exudes quiet menace as Ree's rough, crank-addled yet ultimately devoted uncle (his performance makes it hard to believe that this is the same actor who played the wimpy Sol Star on HBO's Deadwood).  Lawrence, meanwhile, shines as the film's teenage heroine, a girl desperate to track down her shifty, crystal-meth-cooking father (if he misses his court date, the family home that he put up for bond will be lost).  The talented actress captures both the courageous and anxious sides of Ree's character, and is equally effective whether exhibiting a sharp tongue or a quivering lip.

The film version, though, ignores a key component of Ree's character in the novel: her intimate, quasi-lesbian relationship with her best friend Gail.  Much is lost thematically here, because the solace she seeks in Gail's arms only underscores the lack of acceptable male figures in Ree's life.

Director Debra Granik's adaptation is quite faithful to the plot of the novel.  But I just wish she would have included a wrinkle from Woodrell's conclusion.  When a certain job offer is made to Ree at novel's end, the author raises the possibility that additional sparks will fly from Ree's future interactions with her volatile relatives.

This is an excellent film, one well-deserving of its Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and its Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.  It's eclipsed, however, by Woodrell's utterly brilliant book, a work that contends for the laurel of Great American Novel.  Thus the lopsided nature of my final ranking of the two versions of the narrative:

                         Film: 3

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Book: 7