Winter’s Bone, a film about a daughter’s search for her meth-cooking, deadbeat dad in the Ozarks, works best as a mood piece about meth cookers in the backwoods rather than a movie with a plot. In other words, don’t expect Winter’s Bone to go anywhere or for characters change or have a revelatory experience – it won’t happen. Or, at least, it won’t happen on the surface.

Certainly, the film brutally details the consequences of cooking meth and running on the wrong side of th law. Ree, played by the astounding Jennifer Lawrence, must take care of her little brother and sister in the wake of her mother’s breakdown and father’s disappearance. If he doesn’t show up for court, she is told by a bondsman that their house will be used as collateral. It’s a simple premise: find dad. Unfortunately, the film missteps early on. The first thirty minutes are of Ree wandering from house to house asking friends and relatives if they’d seen her father. Too much time is spent rehashing the same questions without illuminating either Ree or the backwoodsy characters that populate the film.

Another problematic feature of the film is Ree herself. Although she is played well by Jennifer Lawrence – and indeed, the scene at the lake is one of the most horrifying things I’ve watched in awhile, made all the more so by the expression on Ree’s face – the character is too dependent on others to help her out, so much so that she never actually does anything except ask questions.

Taken as a mood piece, however, the film is more interesting. The Ozarks are as much a character as anyone else in the movie, and Ree’s wanderings show the viewer a side of the lakes rarely seen: it is dark and dangerous, stark and unforgiving. Viewed this way, Winter’s Bone is a moment in a young girl’s life where she must confront the world on which lives. In that way, it is most certainly revelatory.