Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2011

There are no shoot-outs, fisticuffs or car chases, but this is one of the best thrillers you’re likely to see this year. The unlikely hero of this hauntingly authentic, character-based “country noir” chiller is Ree (a star turn for newcomer Jennifer Lawrence), a 17-year-old girl living well below the poverty line in the Ozarks, a virtual parent to her small brother and sister and caregiver for her vacant mom. When The Law informs her that her meth-cooking father has skipped bail after putting up their ramshackle house as bond, and that she’ll lose the place if he doesn’t show up for court, she says, “I’ll find him.” And there’s an intelligence, a centeredness there that makes you believe her. She sets out on a backwoods Odyssey to locate her deadbeat dad (or his bones⎯just as good), seeking information from some very scary characters to whom the only cardinal sin is snitching. Warned off and even beaten, Ree doesn’t give up because she simply doesn’t know how. Eventually her cokehead uncle (a terrific John Hawkes), one of the scariest, provides some reluctant help, and the tension ratchets up. I forgot it was a movie.