sss

There is a hint of this good, too, in the pride Ms. Granik's heroine, 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), takes in her family's honor

when a bail bondsman (Tate Taylor) appears at her door to tell her that her father, Jessup, charged with "cooking" methamphetamines, has put

their house up as bail and then disappeared. If he doesn't show up for his trial, she is told, she, her mother and siblings will lose their

home. Ree, who has no income and whose mother is non compos mentis, is the only person able to look after her younger brother (Isaiah Stone)

and sister (Ashlee Thompson). Yet she has not the slightest doubt that her father must be dead or he would have showed up. "I'm a Dolly, bred

and buttered, and that's how I know he's dead," she confidently says.

She is thus appealing to the same standard of honor of which she immediately becomes the victim. For when she turns for help in finding her

father -- or his body -- to a succession of friends and relatives with little success, all assure her that there are powerful forces engaged

in his disappearance, and she were best to shut up about it and submit to her fate. Gradually, we learn that Jessup has committed the

unpardonable sin in this harsh and unforgiving world based on honor. He has informed on his fellow drug-manufacturers, including members of

his own extended family, rather than go to jail. As Ree's uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes) informs her, "He loved you all. That's why he went

weak."

There, I think, the film puts a foot wrong. It seems most unlikely that, for some bizarre but unspecified reason, Jessup would have thought

he could somehow escape the inevitable retribution that everyone else in the movie automatically assumes is the lot of the snitch. In real

life, if he had put love for his family first he would have known that they would be better taken care of if he had gone to jail and kept his

mouth shut. That, much more than the murder or intimidation of witnesses, is why it is always so hard to get a conviction in these honor-

based family businesses. All the same, I think it worth looking past this false rendering if you are fully to appreciate what the movie has

to offer.