The differences between Jennifer Lawrence‘s tough teenaged Ozark girl in Winter’s Bone (Roadside, 6.11) and the scampy sweaty thing she’s projecting in her Esquire spread are considerable.
She’s playing strong, determined and unafraid in the film — you feel admiration for her almost immediately. What you mainly get from the Esquire shoot is that she’s tall and leggy and ambitious.
I’m getting 10 or 12 minutes with her tomorrow morning so we’ll see where that goes.
Her Winter’s Bone character is 17 and named Ree Dolly. Her goal in the pic is to find her no-good ayehole dad who put the family’s backwood home up for his bail bond and then skipped. If he stays gone Ree and her family will be living under the stars. The film is basically about Ree asking questions of several grungy Ozarkians, smokers all. They lie, threaten, stare her down, evade and dance around the truth, but she hangs in and won’t back off.
Winter’s Bone is straight, sturdy, “real.” But my primary thought as I left my viewing is that I’m glad I wasn’t born to poor folk in the Ozarks, and that I’d be accepting if not grateful if the Emperor of the Universe told me I’ll never visit this region ever again for the rest of my life.