Script Review: #98 Winter's Bone (2010) | WGA 101 Greatest Scripts of the 21st Century
Unsentimental, unsettling, and unconventional, Winter's Bone is a grim drama that hits all the right notes.
Logline: An unflinching Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact.
Written by: Debra Granik, Anna Rosellini
Based on: The novel Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Pages: 73
Winter’s Bone is bleak and harsh in its depiction about a young girl in the Ozarks who must find her missing drug dealing father and produce him to the courts, or risk losing her home. It is also nuanced in its portrayal of how the methamphetamine culture has devastated families in the Ozarks; how poverty keeps them trapped without many prospects of escape; and how the cruelty of kin can be in the face of self-preservation, even if it means letting one of their own go homeless.
The script is adapted by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini (a first-time writer with no prior scriptwriting experience but enough experience as a film programmer to serve as a co-producer on the finished product), based on the 2006 Daniel Woodrell book of the same name. It’s also Granik’s second feature script to have the word “Bone” in the title (her first one was coincidentally, “Down to the Bone”). The writing is sparse in its description, written in a sparse style that borders on poetic. We are not given descriptions about how characters react or feel in a scene, leaving the interpretation to us. Still, it is this very act of omission that makes it a rich reading experience— and any actor’s dream, as it leaves room open for interpretation.
The story is simple and barebones: Ree Dolly, the main character, must find her father or lose the house that he has put up as collateral. Over the course of the script, it becomes clear that her father, Jessup, is dead. In the second half, Ree is given a Hail Mary: if she can produce evidence of Jessup’s corpse, the bond will be forfeit, and she’ll keep the house. Although there is a whodunnit element to its plot, the mystery is an afterthought— the killer’s identity is not revealed, and how Jessup’s body ended up in a lake is never explained.
But that’s not the point of Winter’s Bone. It’s about the hardship that Ree endures, and how her self-sufficiency prevents her from succumbing to despair and leaving her two younger siblings, Sonny (12) and Ashlee (6) from being on the road. Everywhere she goes, her efforts are rebuffed by the other residents even though many of them are related to some degree. The biggest obstacles are the men, all of them seemingly involved in the meth trade, while the women aid Ree directly or indirectly. In this community, the women suffer for their men’s deeds- Ree’s mother, Connie, went crazy trying and failing to get away from this life; Ree’s best friend, Gail is a teenage mother. Ree’s only hope of escape is enlisting in the army. In the TV series Breaking Bad, Walter White ekes out a profitable living as a meth cook; here, the profit margins seem to be really thin or non-existent. By contrast, every character is either dealing meth, taking meth, or connected to someone who does one or the other.
At no point, however, does the script condemn the characters for their occupation. Nor does it take pains to make them unrealistically sympathetic. It merely portrays them as they are, and leaves it up to us to draw our conclusions about them. They live hard lives, and they have become what they are in response to the circumstances. And they don’t talk. Everyone is suspicious of the law, which explains their reluctance to talk to Ree. Despite everything, Ree feels ashamed to learn that her father had turned informant (which is what got him killed) but her Uncle Teardrop is not quick to judge (page 63).
Who are the characters in Winter’s Bone?
The characters are a colorful variety, and apart from Ree and Gail, they include:
Uncle Teardrop Dolly- Ree’s uncle and a methamphetamine addict
Blond Milton- Sonya’s husband and a methamphetamine addict
Sonya- a neighbor who takes care of Ree’s horse
Thump Milton- leader of the methamphetamine gang
Merab- Thump Milton’s wife
Alice- Merab’s sister
Tilly- Merab’s sister
Little Arthur- Megan’s husband and a member of the methamphetamine gang
Megan- Ree’s distant cousin
Sheriff Baskin
Mike Satterfield- the bondsman
Sonny and Ashlee1 – Ree’s siblings
Connie- Ree’s mother
What is the style of writing in Winter’s Bone?
Granik and Rosellini establish the tone of the environment from page 1 by juxtaposing images of Ree hanging up laundry while a ballad croons about Missouri. They don’t go into detail about the poverty-stricken landscape- they show it through simple actions such as Ree giving some leftovers for the dog, saying it’s “better than nothing” (page 3)…
Or Ree requesting her neighbor to keep her horse for a while since it hasn’t eaten in four days (page 7)…
Or how Ree maintains her pride and dignity, because it’s one of the few things she has in her circumstances…
Similarly, there are no character descriptions given beyond their age and their relation to Ree. If you are struggling with how to introduce characters without making it hackneyed, cliché, or biased, Winter’s Bone is proof that you can simply state their age and relation, and leave the rest up to the casting director.
What is the screenplay structure in Winter’s Bone?
Though it might not seem apparent on first glance, the script does adhere to a traditional Three-Act structure.
Act 1
Setup – Ree works hard to feed her family and keep them happy
Inciting Incident – Ree is threatened with losing her home if her missing father doesn’t turn up in time for the court date
Plot Point 1 – Ree decides to find her father and bring him for the appointed court date
Act 2
Rising Action – Ree encounters resistance and obstacles from the community until she accepts the hard truth that Jessup Dolly is dead
Midpoint – Ree learns that if she can produce evidence of her father’s death, she won’t lose the house
Plot Point 2 – Ree is beaten up by Thump Milton’s wife and sisters, Teardrop assumes responsibility for Ree and reveals that Jessup was killed because he turned informant to avoid spending a long prison sentence, and Ree fails to enlist in the army, leaving her without options
Act 3
Build Up – Teardrop decides to go searching for Jessup and takes Ree with her but their efforts are in vain; in a tense standoff between Teardrop and Sheriff Baskin, Ree realises from her uncle’s dialogue that Baskin leaked the news about Jessup being an informant
Climax – Merab decides to show Ree where Jessup’s body lies and helps her saw off the hands to produce as definitive proof that he is dead but warns not to go poking around anymore
Finale – The bondsman gives Ree a bag of money that an unknown person had put on Jessup prior to his death and Teardrop realizes who killed Jessup; Ree promises her siblings that she is staying with them and never leaving
This is proof that structure is everything. Get the structure right, and the rest will fall into place. Meanwhile, Ree undergoes a journey: She starts off poor and mired in dire straits, she struggles to rescue her family from a seemingly hopeless situation, and she saves her house in the end and with some extra money to help them out, which also allows her to stay back and raise her siblings instead of leaving to join the army.
The script moves at a brisk pace and at 73 pages, feels extraordinary short. The finished film runs up to 100 minutes; that’s because the script focuses solely on what’s happening instead of adding description. Action lines that only run for two sentences might run for much longer when filmed. Brevity is your friend. It will shorten your writing time, too.
Winter’s Bone was written before Ozarks made the region a pop culture destination. The book was written two years before the 2007-2008 financial crisis; the script in the immediate aftermath. Both offer a realistic and contemporary view on the impact of the methamphetamine culture on the families living there. Read today, it is even more pronounced just how economical circumstances can push a community to dangerous and desperate circumstances; a warning about how increasing financial inequality can send us into directions we’d never take if it means being able to put food on the table. As Ree, who learned this lesson the hard way, admonishes her brother: “There’s a bunch of stuff that you’re going to have to get over being scared of.”
(* Ashlee, the sister, was a last-minute change prompted by filming difficulties- originally, the story called for two brothers, but the crew struggled to find a young male actor for the younger brother; Ashlee Dawn Thompson lived on the property on which Winter’s Bone was being filmed and because she naturally knew the place and was authentic, they rewrote the character for her complete with being referred to as Ashlee Dawn, probably to avoid confusing the child).
(Ashlee, the sister, was a last-minute change prompted by filming difficulties- originally, the story called for two brothers, but the crew struggled to find a young male actor for the younger brother; Ashlee Dawn Thompson lived on the property on which Winter’s Bone was being filmed and because she naturally knew the place and was authentic, they rewrote the character for her complete with being referred to as Ashlee Dawn, probably to avoid confusing the child).