As crack cocaine is to inner cities and alcohol is to Indian reservations, so methamphetamine is devastating rural white communities across the United States. WINTER'S BONE, set in the remote Ozark Mountains, hauntingly depicts this plague. The story focuses on 17-year-old Ree Dolly, whose father has disappeared after putting up the family home as bail collateral. Unless she can find him, Ree and her younger brother and sister will be without a roof over their heads.

Ree's father is a "cooker" and her mother has been driven into a catatonic state. Ree is on her own in the hostile, clannish, and male-dominated community where she stumbles from trailer to trailer in her frantic search. Crank's ravages are everywhere, in the gaunt and grim faces, the harsh and sudden violence, the cruelty and hopelessness. Her father's only brother, Teardrop (flawlessly played by John Hawkes), holds a spoonful of the white powder out to her and asks, "Gotten the taste for it yet?" "Not yet," she recoils.

Aside from the down-home soundtrack, Winter's Bone is not easy to watch. Its gritty realism never lets up. The characters look like they climbed from Dorothea Lange's Depression and Dust Bowl images, only with a touch of meth-induced paranoia added to the hunger and despair. The dialogue is sparse, and not once in 100 minutes do we hear laughter or feel much hope for Ree's future. What makes it all bearable is the strength and determination of Ree, movingly played by 19-year-old Jennifer Lawrence.

Winter's Bone is winning awards and earning rave reviews. The acclaim is well deserved. To achieve authenticity, director and co-writer Debra Granik and her team spent two years immersing themselves in the local community. Ree's younger sister is even played by a child who lives in the main house in which the movie is set. The film's power makes me want to see Granik's 2005 debut film, "Down to the Bone," another award winner focused on drug addiction and featuring a strong female lead.

Postscript: For an excellent critical review, I recommend the Feb. 20 analysis by "Turfseer." (As a shortcut to it, you can type amzn.to/hYcDdT into your browser.)

In American movies, we don't often see how we really live, but you will in Winter's Bone, and you don't need to have had a rough childhood in the back woods for this movie to make you feel the grittiness and glory of life -- or for you to know, like you would know how to find your bed in the dark, that this is probably the best movie you will see this year. And maybe longer.

Winter's Bone, directed by Debra Granik, was adapted from a novel by Daniel Woodrell. It was made in the Ozarks, often in the homes of the people who live there. Shot digitally on a mingy budget, it could pass for state-of-the-art Hollywood --- just raw and unvarnished, like Hollywood never is.

The story is simple; this is a straightforward thriller. Ree's father, Jessup Dolly, was busted a while back for cooking methamphetamine. To make bond, he put up his family's house and 300 acres of virgin timber. Now his court date is a week away --- and he's nowhere to be found. The local lawman drives out to warn Ree that the Dollys are in danger of losing their home.

Ree's mother has suffered a breakdown and is of no help, either in caring for her children or finding her husband. That puts her daughter --- already burdened by the need to look after her younger brother and sister --- on a mission. And don't think for a minute she'll quit, even though her quest is a walk on a knife edge; she can't turn in her father, all she can do is ask for help in finding him so she can talk to him. And the only people who can help her? His relatives. Some of them make the most addictive drug on the planet. All of them don't understand why she can't remember she's a Dolly --- "bred and buttered," as she says --- and just stop. As they say, "Talking just causes witnesses."

In its dramatic revelations, its dark surprises, and its no-nonsense portrayal of The Way We Are, the film feels almost like a Greek tragedy --- or an American Western.

There's a good reason this film won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Films and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance last winter, and why critic after critic is reaching deep into the superlatives lexicon to praise it as "the American film of the year" -- every detail is right. Jenny Lawrence, who plays Ree, comes from Tennessee. John Hawkes, last seen in Deadwood, is Jessup's brother; he's also from the region and looks so much like a member of The Band that it's eerie. Much of the cast is local and non-professional --- and, no offense, but they look like people who might make crank, who could scare you at traffic lights with a sidelong glance, who would quiet you with "I already told you to shut up with my mouth" and let their hands do the talking after that.

I've never seen a movie that's both painful to watch and impossible to turn away from. The scene with the squirrel. Ree's desperate attempt to convince an Army recruiter -- who's played by an Army recruiter -- to let her enlist for five years so she can collect the government's $40,000 bonus. And a climax so remarkable, so distant from anything you know as reality, that you'll never forget it.

Adapted from the novel by Daniel Woodrell, WINTER'S BONE immediately sparked comparisons to last year's Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker. Both films received limited runtime in theaters. But I must say this is by far the superior movie in just about every aspect imaginable, unless you count overwrought machoism, slanted anti-war sentiments, and explosions as a category. Don't get me wrong, The Hurt Locker was a decent film for what it was. But it won't leave the kind of lasting impression like this story will.

When you hear the word "backwoods", you might get the immediate impression of inbred, buck-toothed hillbillies wearing overalls and drinking moonshine. This story doesn't succumb to exploiting certain exaggerated stereotypes just to grab your attention. But these characters are definitely a little rough around the edges, to say the least.

Filmed in the Ozarks of Missouri, this is a simple but riveting dramatic tale about family, danger, and perseverance. Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17-year-old girl forced to grow up way too fast. With her mother desperately ailing and her father somewhere hiding from the law, she struggles to support her younger brother and sister. To make matters worse, a bail bondsman notifies her that her dad put up their home as his bail bond, then skipped out on court. In order to track her father down, Ree is forced to enter a seedy, violent realm of paranoid drug pushers and users. Many of them happen to be distant family members. Family ties or not, none of them are too anxious to help her out. The risks and desperation mount as she inches closer to the truth.

The best part of this film is the character development and the acting. It is so refreshing to see the young cast perform their roles with such controlled precision. Especially Lawrence. She puts many established Hollywood actors to shame here, I can't wait to see more of her work.

WINTER'S BONE is slow paced, and might not appeal to many casual movie goers. But it does have some moments of heightened tension that will leave you holding your breath. It explores a certain drug culture and meager lifestyle that is rarely touched upon in movies. Plus it makes some poignant, thought-provoking points about family devotion and the human spirit.

It also was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. I doubt there will be a better film than this all year. Brilliant filmmaking.