"Winter's Bone" is a brilliant, if almost exhaustingly nerve-wracking film. Very reminiscent in mood, style, cinematography and even the theme somewhat to the similarly incredible "Frozen River" from 2008 (made by Courtney Hunt), this film in many ways is the kind of film-making that seems to have largely disappeared: the film for grown-up folks.

Based on a novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone is directed by Debra Granik. I haven't seen her other movies but I certainly want to now. Seems like meaningful film-making is fast becoming a women's play in Hollywood specially after Katherine Bigelow's amazing Hurt Locker.

Jennifer Lawrence is brilliant as Ree Dolly, an unflinching Ozark Mountain girl, who must find her disappeared drug-dealing father to save her house, two little siblings and a dysfunctional mother. She is supported by a cast of relative unknowns that weave the complex social web that she must traverse to achieve the seemingly impossible. While the mood is overly depressing, the director is certainly able to ad enough redeeming touches to make you root for the characters and the fractured Dolly family.