MovieChat Forums > Winter's Bone (2010) Discussion > Couldn't make it past the 45 minute mark...

Couldn't make it past the 45 minute mark!

posted 10 years ago by jorgito2001
9 replies | jump to latest

Before someone orders me to rewatch the Transformers series, I'm just gonna say, the movie was just SO uninteresting and dull that I just COULD NOT continue on past the 45 minute mark! It was so darn BORING. Nothing interesting, very "bland", and I couldn't relate to the whole rural lifestyle! How in heck did this win ANY Best Picture is beyond me! And I've seen a very good share of slow moving adult dramas.

Only other highly rated movie I stopped at about the same time mark was Capote, which was equally as uninteresting and boring!

--
I'm your average ordinary everyday, jorgeegeetooo!

[–] victor-200 10 years ago

I wouldn't call it "boring," but I had a similar problem. I tried watching it three times and it kept putting me to sleep, coincidentally around the same 45 minute mark.

For me it wasn't boring. It was sleep inducing.

''I'm fortunate the pylons were not set to a lethal level."

[–] percyjacksonthief 10 years ago

Yeah! Oscar my ass! And the 94% rotten tomatoes review is BS! I thought I was drunk while watching the movie. I couldn't pass the 45 minute mark as well. But I continued watching the film in a different time. Not a good film!

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

I agree with all posters that up to the 45 minute mark I found it somewhat repetitive.

However somewhere around this mark it finally starts moving in other directions and the drama and suspense do step up.

[–] raymondunc 9 years ago

I will agree that this movie has no excitement beyond the shock value. But if you see it as a rather good example of how drug addiction ruins lives, this is a very good movie. Oftentimes when one sees drug addiction in the movies it doesn't show the part of the abyss where some people find ways to hang on to some kind of existence.

Many times holding off the final bottom from dropping out it has to do with living off the past though the efforts of those who came before them. Efforts such as parents and grandparents who acquired parcels of land, built homes, and passed these assets to their children.

The drug addicts will also find ways to supply drugs as a way to have the drugs themselves. Activities such as growing their crops and manufacturing meth are very common routes because they are more in control and part of the process. These activities also helps feed the notion that they are too smart to get caught as only the 'stupid' people get caught. This is why they keep such close control of who goes where and who talks about who and what.

When they control the land, the drug making and distribution processes, and their immediate culture, it can buy time keeping death and destruction at bay just a little longer. However, this type of putting off the inevitable often has to include control and violence because it won't happen naturally. By this time the only goal is to keep feeding their addiction and nothing else matters anymore. Everything they do is just part of that process. Violence or pain to others is justified because of it.

If you look at this film from this point of view you might like it a little more. It isn't uplifting. But is something to watch with those in your life that could benefit from such an accurate example of just how ugly drug addiction can often get in rural areas when not dealt with in the early stages and left to run a muck.

Life is like Wikipedia: There are no Facts, Just Popular Opinion

[–] kincaid-5 9 years ago

Nowhere in the film (or the book) is anyone represented as being addicted to anything. There a couple of scenes -- just a couple -- where someone is shown using or offering drugs. But addiction is neither shown nor implied. (Contrary to popular belief, not everyone who uses drugs becomes an addict.)

The Dollys cook meth not to feed their own habits, but because it is this generation's criminal enterprise. Before that, it was marijuana -- the sheriff says so -- and before that, presumably, moonshining. (The Dollys have been a crime family for at least a hundred years.) Ree's father didn't die from drugs but because he was about to snitch on other members of the family. Some reviewers suggest that her mother's dementia is drug-related, but that's neither in the film nor the book.

This isn't Requiem for a Dream.

http://redkincaid.com

[–] raymondunc 9 years ago

But addiction is neither shown nor implied.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I think widespread drug addiction that has sent the community down the tubes is more than implied and shown, it is spelled out with their actions. People who are not drug addicts don't make these kind of decisions beyond one or two crazy people. This is a whole community, a community with drug addiction run a muck.

If you have seen it before, you'll see it every time you do see it. There are not many times in life you don't have to be told what is really going on, but this is one of those times. Drug addiction is very predictable and very recognizable.

Life is like Wikipedia: There are no Facts, Just Popular Opinion

[–] kincaid-5 9 years ago

OK, I think you've fallen into the same trap as a lot of reviewers -- seeing this as a film about rural poverty or a community ravaged by drugs. It's actually about the dynamics of one specific extended family, the Dollys, who are not typical of anything, and whose neighbors want as little to do with them as possible. (The film could have done a better job of making this clear.)

Your argument does not seem to be based on the film but on your conviction -- which I don't dispute -- that (1) rural communities are often destroyed by addiction, and (2) addicts act in scary and irrational ways. But that's not what this film is about. The Dollys are a family of professional criminals and have been as far back as anyone knows, probably back to the Civil War. If they weren't cooking meth, they would be hijacking, illegal dumping, or dealing in stolen goods. (For all we know, some of them may be. Where did Thump get the cattle that he's dealing in at the auction?) And they would be following the same code of silence and easy resort to violence. They've been doing that since long before meth came on the scene.

I repeat that there are no indications that anyone in the film is addicted. No one appears to be high, let alone jonesing. Ree is as much a part of the family culture as anyone ("bred and buttered"), but it's shown clearly that she doesn't do any drugs beyond the occasional joint. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

This isn't a film about the perils of drug abuse in rural America, but about how Ree Dolly managed to save the family home, despite everything against her.

http://redkincaid.com

[–] raymondunc 9 years ago

Well, one or both of us just might be trapped. I do disagree that no one appears high. Occasional getting high and drug addiction high are two different things. Almost everyone in this film play the drug addict very well.

You see a family with a multiple generational history of being criminals. I see a generation of drug addicts. Now, coming from a family who bent or broke any rule they could that would give them some benefit would help the current generation to throw the social rules out the window, but drug addicts run a muck just the same.

And I don't think this picture of drug addiction is peculiar to rural America. I think, after adjusting for location, this is pretty much the picture of long standing drug addiction anywhere, in any country.

Life is like Wikipedia: There are no Facts, Just Popular Opinion

[–] 9 years ago

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