Winter’s Bone raised Jennifer Lawrence’s star status
Winter’s Bone is a top-shelf pick this week but there’s also an offbeat analysis of a classic horror film.
The oft-maligned American south is done no favours by the compelling but bleak 2010 rural drama Winter’s Bone (Saturday, 9.30pm, SBS Two). This is the film that put Jennifer Lawrence on Hollywood’s radar, and she is very good as the Ozarks teenager who must find her meth-cooking, jailbird father to save her house and land. Instead, she uncovers a web of lies and deceit. Director Debra Granik doesn’t overdo the backwoods cliches often found in such stories, and Lawrence’s determination keeps the film from being too much of a downer.
Beyond being a showcase for Jeff Bridges’ reinvention of the iconic Old West lawman Rooster Cogburn — the role that won John Wayne his lone Oscar in 1969 — it’s hard to say exactly what Joel and Ethan Coen were thinking when they remade the popular western True Grit (Saturday, 8.30pm, SBS One). Typically well-crafted, it lacks that certain thread of dark humour that is a hallmark of the brothers’ work. Matt Damon impresses in the role of straight-arrow Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, and Bridges’ irascibility rescues the film from listlessness.
Fans of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film The Shining will certainly want to take a look at director-editor Rodney Ascher’s extraordinary 2012 documentary Room 237 (Thursday, 10.45pm, SBS Two). Subtitled Being an Inquiry into The Shining in 9 Parts, the film is narrated by five obsessive fans who each have radically different views on what the film means. These include an indictment of Native American genocide; the Holocaust; a fantasy dreamscape based on impossible architecture; and, perhaps most entertainingly far-fetched, the urban myth that Kubrick filmed fake moon landing footage on a soundstage in 1969. Loaded with clips from the director’s career, the film makes the viewer consider The Shining in a whole new light.
Winner of the Montreal film festival’s grand jury prize, the crowd-pleasing 2007 Israeli dramatic comedy Noodle (Wednesday, 12.35am, SBS One) follows a melancholy flight attendant who suddenly finds herself caring for a young Chinese boy and attempting to reunite him with his mother. Narratively inventive and bracingly well-acted, the film invites comparisons to the Oscar-winning 1996 Czech drama Kolya in its portrayal of a resigned pessimist whose life is transformed by the needs and rewards of a child.
Star Wars fever is mounting in anticipation of the seventh film’s release next month, and now there’s an opportunity to watch the third instalment in the series, Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi (Saturday, 7pm, Seven), where creator George Lucas began to soften his approach with an eye on merchandising. Originally titled “Revenge” instead of “Return,” this is also the film that introduced those chipper furballs the Ewoks. But the speeder chase through the forests of Endor is a keeper.
Winter’s Bone (AV15+) 3.5 stars
Saturday, 9.30pm, SBS Two
Noodle (M) 3.5 stars
Wednesday, 12.35am, SBS One
Room 237 (M) 4 stars
Thursday, 10.45pm, SBS Two