I can't believe she would go back to that loser or that her relatives would allow it?? I think they would have killed Glen. In the book did she go back to him?? Also, did the relatives at the end know the extent of the abuse??? I think if they did they might not have let the mother go back to him.
shareYes she did.It's explained better in the book but yes Momma takes Reese & goes off to (possibly)Florida with Glen.The Uncles are looking for Glen but it's kinda left as everyone is better off without them & that she should know,after abandoning Bone for the man who raped her(Bone)she can never go back.
Alas... how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
So sad! If he molested one daughter, who's to say Glen won't molest the other daughter? Is she gonna send her to an aunt as well to keep her marriage?
You just HAD to see what was behind this spoiler, didn't you?
Oh my God, she goes back with Glen in the book?! Are we to believe that in the films she does this too?
Because it didn't seem that way, with the mom talking to Bone about how she never believed Glen would hurt her like that.
On a side note, I'm kind of surprised Bone never told her mother that Glen molested her.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
In the film, she leaves her daughter for Glen and Bone is left with her aunt.
As sad as it is to see on tv, this happens every day in real life. Women are so lonely and desperate to be with a man that they ignore the obvious signs that he is an abuser or is actively abusing their kids.
"Insert Anything Spoken By" Ari Gold
I agree at the end she does go back to him in the movie as the Storyline states : Difficult tale of poor, struggling South Carolinian mother & daughter, who each face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance. I also I agree it does happen in real life as I watch Steve Wilkos and see it happen quite often even just abused women with no kids. I absolutely love this movie I really love the song at the end of the movie Be Careful Of The Stones (That You Throw). Hank Sr. did the song to 1st. The song actually makes me and my girlfriend in tears if you really listen to the words of the song it is really emotional.
shareThe song at the end is The Staple Singers singing it!!! I forgot to write that sorry!!!
shareYeah, hard to have a good opinion of the movie with such a plot. The mother's "love" is just BS, the uncles' protectiveness is just impotence, and Bone's moment of bravery is just cowardice since she won't get the guy arrested before he inevitably abuses her sister. Seems like a porno for people who enjoy abuse.
sharetimlin4, it's a true story. It happens often (just look at those who have started coming forward recently, Monique, Ashley Judd). Bone is not a coward, she has been conditioned to hide the truth, abusers spend years "grooming" their victims into submission and silence. You're being really ignorant.
"Kristen, p***y to the wood. *beep* your guitar!" - Joan Jett rehearsing The Runaways @HereComesSun86
It isn't really a true story, just a novel. However, the situation happens every day.
shareUh, cynobite, this movie is not "just" a novel; it is really a true autobiographical story based on the life of its author Dorothy Allison. Unfortunately and sadly, you are right when you say that this type of situation happens every day.
shareUh, yeah, it actually is just a novel. True, she was an abused child, but it is not about her and her family per se. If it were nonfiction, it would be in the nonfiction section of the Library of Congress with all of the other autobiographies.
I am holding my own well-loved copy right here in my lap and there is the note inside: "Publisher's Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental."
So, it's a novel.
Uh, actually, it is a true story based on her life and the only fictitious changes or omissions to her TRUE story were the names and other pointers which would incriminate family members and friends. Not only do I have a copy of her book, I also have personally done extensive research on Ms. Allison and her life for my own book on sexual violence against women which is being published this summer. So this film is based on actual events in her life, and the names were changed to protect the innocent, etc.
share[deleted]
And let me add that "based on actual events" does not make it an autobiography.
shareAnd let me add that do you honestly believe that every autobiography you have read was 100% factual? Do you believe that a complete stranger is going to first of all REMEMBER, and second of all, tell YOU every little thing that went on in his or her life? And furthermore, even if the author poured out her heart in her life's story, don't you know that once she sells the rights to her story, the film director has the right to embellish, add, delete, or change any part of that written story to make the film into what he/she wants it to be?
Why are you arguing over this point so strongly? Let it go, and acknowledge and appreciate both the book and the film for what they are: two great cultural artifacts which tell the sad, but continuing story of child abuse in this world.
You know, someone could ask you the same question.
There is a difference between a semi-autobiographical novel (which it is what this is called) and an autobiography. Bone is a child based on Dorothy Allison. Bone is NOT Dorothy Allison.
The funny thing is, I do acknowledge and appreciate how the book and the film are absolutely necessary to understanding child abuse. However, (and this is why this is even important to me at all) I would think that anyone who reads here, goes to their local library, and tries to find this book in the biography or nonfiction section will wonder why it's in fiction. I also think that libraries (including the Library of Congress) know exactly what type of book it is.
As a child, I read the Great Brain series of books. The author who tells the story in first person writes about himself and his family. He even uses real names. But those books are in the fiction section. Why? Because they include made up situations and characters who weren't real as well as those that were. If that happens, it isn't autobiographical or biographical even. It's semi-autobiographical at best, and that's what we have in the case of BOOC.
I will end this conversation with you by saying once again that we should let the autobiography and the film stand as cultural artifacts which shed light on the dreadful subject of child abuse. For further information, please purchase a copy of my new book on this subject coming to a bookstore near you! Thanks, take care and may God bless and protect our poor abused children!
share"QUOTE: Re: Did the mom go back to the molestor???
by - timlin-4 on Sun Mar 27 2011 17:57:08
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Yeah, hard to have a good opinion of the movie with such a plot. The mother's "love" is just BS, the uncles' protectiveness is just impotence, and Bone's moment of bravery is just cowardice since she won't get the guy arrested before he inevitably abuses her sister. Seems like a porno for people who enjoy abuse."
When you're a kid in the throes of that kind of thing, you don't tell. You never know how it's going to come back on you, and no matter HOW messed up your mom is, you still love her and don't want anything bad to happen to her. You also sort of rationalize that it's your fault.
In this day and age, it's a bit different, but even back in the '70s, and certainly at the time in which this film is placed, it was "what was done."
To call that child a "coward" says more about you than it says about "Daddy Glenn."
You probably don't know about the big sisters who endured the abuse to protect their own little sisters.
You probably don't know anything about abuse at all.
WTF do you know about being a little girl in the face of an adult abuser and a mother who just believes what he says?!?
Yeah, it's porno. I'm sure everyone who has watched this film got off on it.
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Aagh; you're a HEDGE!
The term, "Porn" can be used to described non-pornographic material. I've seen Winter's Bone described as Poverty Porn. Basically it us used to describe films that use tragedy (child abuse in this movie and poverty in Winter's Bone) and exploits the situation for melodrama instead of looking at the problem in a deeper way.
I don't know if that's what timlin-4 meant or if the label applies to this film, but it could.
Couldn't sleep and stumbled on to this movie... I don't know how I missed it when it came out. The movie moved me to tears. No really I had a good long cry. I know what it's like to have to indure being abussed. The very next day I bought the book. The movis was very close to the book. And Jena Malone is a marvel. I don't know if I could have allowed a child of mine do such a movie. Directing it had to hard as well. This kind of thing happens all over. It pains me to know that it's common..
And the scars are forever.
I can't believe she would go back to that loser or that her relatives would allow it
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Yes, she was pretty amazing in this movie.
fly....be free
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Which is non-existing. I already told you, he can't act.
He lives on the success that his "good looks" got him and the teen girls who buy the Twilight crap. You can't say this man is truly a great actor such as Denzel Washington, Robert De Niro or Jack Nicholson now can you?
No matter how hard you try to defend it, you cant cover up the fact shosh just likes Pattinson because of his looks and age.
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Instead of being a man and confronting me about it you decide to attack a woman twice your age who hasn't said a word against you since as if it makes you feel big.
*High fives Shosh*
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OK, I will give you that. He doesn't act like a 30 year old.
It's all good.
fly....be free
Yup, she went back to him. The ending always left an sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I watched this when I was younger and I was scared out of my mind.
I would put something witty here, but my mind is blank. So you get this instead:
It's also not uncommon for a woman to be especially loyal to her husband, even if she knows that her children are being abused and/or molested by their father or stepfather. Sad but true.
shareBone's mother was just as guilty as Daddy Glen. There is no *beep* excuss ever. She was the enabler, who constantly refused to protect her child. Sad but true? Targeting and punishing the enabler is as important as getting the Perp. I favor capital punishment for such perps and long prison sentences for enablers.
shareAt that time, abuse and molestation was not talked about, and certainly the term "enabling" was not well-known or in usage then. You also have to remember that at the time this film is set (the 1950s), women had fewer opportunities and freedom than today. Anney felt she couldn't survive, literally, without a husband. Women did work, but not the way they do now. Of course, that doesn't make her choosing Glen over her daughter any less disgusting or infuriating. Also, there are plenty of women who do that very same thing now. They have so little self-esteem and self-worth that they think that having a man in their life is more important than their children's happiness and well-being.
I speak from personal experience. My mother, emotionally and psychologically, chose a man over her children when it came to my brother and myself. It didn't matter that we were miserable and mistreated, as long as she wasn't without a man.
I'm sorry that happened to you, Noirdame79. Later in life (I was a teenager), I had similar experiences with a boyfriend of my mom's.
My parents divorced when I was teen, and my mom was dating a truly evil man younger than herself.
She promised he'd never move in, but she turned right around & moved him in.
He tortured us in so many ways, he even tried to hurt my pets. I wasn't raped, but he would *accidentally* touch me as he walked by any chance he got.
He broke endless things & verbally abused us all. My mom told me that she didn't care what I or my brother thought, it was what she wanted.
She never kicked him out, even though he abused her too. He left...to go to prison.
He stabbed a man in the neck in a bar.
My mom to this day thinks I 'should get over it' since its over now.
She's almost as evil as he is.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
I'm sorry to hear about your experience too, fiatlux-1. It makes you wonder why some women are so desperate and hungry for a man to define their existence. As a parent, your children come first. I guess some people forget that.
My mother is still married to the guy (they have two kids, now grown), but surprisingly, I don't have much of a problem with him anymore. He's mellowed considerably with age, and he's not my biological parent. My mother, on the other hand, is my natural parent but she refuses to acknowledge or take responsibility for anything that happened. Of course, my sisters have a different viewpoint, as they were treated differently. My brother has forgiven her and you'd think that nothing happened. She's extremely self-righteous, in her mind, it didn't happen or if it did, it was my fault. She expected us to be grateful to him, but that didn't happen. My brother left home because he couldn't deal with the abuse anymore and once he left, their rage was unloaded in my direction. I had to take care of my sisters, cook, and take their physical and verbal mistreatment. I can't forget what was done to me, or that my mother not only condoned my stepfather's treatment of us but she started to smack me around as well. I only see her every once in a while, and I make a point to not tell her anything important. I don't trust her. She's my mother and she failed me in almost every possible way. That kind of thing you don't get over or forget.
For the film (and the novel) I cut Anney a tiny bit of slack because she was only 15 when she had Bone, she really had no place to go in terms of making a life for her daughters that was out of that dead-end existence. Her choices were severely limited. Like I said before, women didn't have many choices back then, and it's not like anybody addressed the issues of abuse in those times. It's sad that the "look the other way" mentality was so prevalent in the past. I do find it sickening and infuriating that she left Bone with her sister and brother and took off with Glen, taking little Reese too. Did she not realize that Reese could be Glen's next victim at some point? Not only did she leave the child she put in danger, she was potentially setting it up for Glen to victimize Reese at some point in the future. I don't think Anney had any real self-esteem, that's why she became pregnant so young, she was as Bone put it, "hungry for love".
@OP
I think the difficulty in terms of trying to understand Anney is that folks are trying to assess her behavior as if she were a normal human being. She's an abnormal human being, and therefore her behavior is proportionally abnormal. To a NORMAL person, her behavior is criminal. But when viewed through the abnormal lens which is appropriate for her, her behavior makes "sense". Not that it's excusable in any fashion; just that's it's understandable in that context.
Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you do. (The Last Kiss)