If a big Hollywood studio were to make a film about a family of meth dealers in the Ozarks, it would probably look something like the Dukes of Hazzard, with some gnarly dental fronts thrown in for good measure. Not that Paramount or FOX would sign on for something like Winter’s Bone, director Debra Granik’s sophomore effort, at least not without the inclusion of a meth lab time machine or a talking dog with a computer-generated mouth to spice things up. Granik’s film, which she and Anne Rosselini adapted from a novel by Daniel Woodrell, is a powerful rebuttal to the gimmicky ethos of the industry and a testament to the power of simple storytelling and artfully crafted cinema.

The story’s uncomplicated arc follows Ozark teenager Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) as she attempts to save her family home in a most unusual, and grisly, manner. Already charged with taking care of her two young siblings and mentally unstable mother, Ree learns that the authorities will confiscate their home if her father doesn’t show up for trial on charges of manufacturing methamphetamine. Ree soon suspects that her father has been killed and must navigate a rural underworld of nasty kinfolk to prove that her old man has not simply left the county, but left this world entirely.

Granik says this simplicity is part of what attracted her to the project, “It’s announced from the very opening scene -- you have a very short time to solve this mystery -- and the fact that it’s a mystery gives the film very doable parameters. Anne [Rosselini] and I are always looking for things that can be done on a low budget. One of the best friends of low budget is a film that doesn’t go into a very large span of time and doesn’t go to too many places -- all this took place within a very closed environment of the hills and hollers of her [Ree’s] community.”

Jennifer Lawrence delivers a certifiable breakout performance as the stoic and unrelenting Ree, and Granik lights up when discussing the young actress. She mentions that one of Lawrence’s strengths in this role had nothing to do with acting, “She comes from Kentucky, so the way that she speaks naturally was really beautiful to me. It’s a very pleasing way of pronouncing American English.”

John Hawkes also delivers a powerful performance as Ree’s meth addict uncle, Teardrop, never letting his character’s addiction consume the entire role. Granik’s first film, Down to the Bone, dealt with a woman battling cocaine addiction, a coincidence that begs the question of why drugs have played such a central role in both of her films.

“I’m always looking at it [drug use] from an anthropological perspective, not an ethical or moral perspective, " she says. "Drug taking and the urge to feel better is a sort of rock-bottom human instinct."

Another rock-bottom human instinct that plays a major role in the film is music. The velvety banjos and furious fiddles that exemplify the old-timey musical style of southern Missouri and Arkansas create a pleasingly ominous atmosphere for the film. Granik admits, somewhat self-consciously, that before being introduced to the music of the region she was worried about burdening her film with a musical accompaniment that would conjure images of Deliverance. What she found, however, was a rich musical tradition that inspired her beyond even this individual project: 

“There’s a whole sub-culture where being a super-accomplished rock of a musician is high-esteem. Again, you’re not doing it for the glory of making the top of the charts in Nashville, but because you’re going to a little convention in bum-fuck somewhere just to get $1000 and you can live off that for three months. To me, that’s the America I want to be affiliated with,” she says.

Indirectly, Granik also touches on the America she does not want to be affiliated with. She decries American cinema’s role in the destruction of culture around the world and, surprisingly, here at home -- something she has learned through her experience in independent film. In a N.Y. Times interview she referred to “the awkward Third World conditions for independent film in the United States.”

In explaining this reference, Granik excuses herself for her lack of political correctness, but makes an intriguing point. She discusses how film festivals in the U.S. are mainly staffed with volunteers and need to go begging for funding -- a direct result of lack of government funding for the arts -- and contrasts this with her experience at European film festivals where cultural ministries foot some of the bill. She claims that first-time American independent filmmakers face many of the same hurdles as a Thai or Estonian filmmaker.

Granik herself found obstacles to funding her second film, even though her first was met with critical acclaim. But the funding she had was well spent on first-hand research in the Ozarks to create a run-down, smoky and stunningly realistic aesthetic. This attention to detail, with regard to the music as well as the sets, is a welcome departure from the sonic assault and vulgar displays of power found in most contemporary Hollywood fare, something she playfully refers to as “Robocop filmmaking.”

To illustrate the total lack of subtlety found in modern blockbusters, Granik tells the tale of one of the first screenings of Winter’s Bone. In the opening credits, everyone has seen the little insignia for Dolby 7.0. This refers to the number on a volume dial for a well-balanced film. Granik says that most of today’s big-budget bludgeon-films are tweaked to blow people out of their seats, so the Dolby number has to be set at 4.9 or so. As she walked down the hallway to where her film was screening, she could tell what was playing without reading the marquee.

“The turbojet arrows were flying. The same sound effect that’s used for intergalactic thrust was what you heard when Robin Hood, bless him, let’s go of his arrow,” Granik says.  This new standard caused her film to be barely audible at 4.9, until she personally alerted the projectionist, who was wary of turning it up and possibly damaging someone’s hearing.

Winter’s Bone might not blow you out of your seat, but its appeal lies almost precisely in its quieter aesthetic. It's a film you watch and listen to carefully rather than get pummeled by, in other words a summer release of the absolute most rare variety: A movie for adults.