Down to the Bone

United States

2004

104 Min

Color

1.85:1

English

Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
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PROD Susan Leber, Anne Rosellini

SCR Debra Granik, Richard Lieske, Jean-Michel Dissard, Anne Kugler, Melissa P. Lohman, Alex MacInnes, Joyce Romano

CAST Vera Farmiga, Hugh Dillon, Clint Jordan, Caridad 'La Bruja' de la Luz, Jasper Daniels, Taylor Foxhall, Giles Penderghast, Terry McKenna

PROD DES Mark White

Sundance (Dramatic Competition): Directing Award, Special Jury Prize

Synopsis

Irene is a working class mother living in upstate New York. She struggles to keep her marriage together and raise two sons while keeping her cocaine addiction a secret. After a series of nearly fatal mishaps, and finally hoping to make a change in her life, she decides to check herself into a rehab center. She knows kicking the habit would be tough, but the experience proves even more difficult than she could have anticipated. There, she meets and falls in love with a fellow reformed addict. When one of them falls into a relapse with the addiction, their commitment to staying clean—and to each other—shatters. –Inbaseline

Director

Debra Granik

Debra Granik (born the 6th of February, 1963) is an American independent filmmaker. She has won a series of awards at the Sundance Film Festival, including Best Short in 1998 for Snake Feed (her first film, made while a student at New York University), the Dramatic Directing Award in 2004 for her first feature-length film, Down to the Bone (a tale of addiction she co-scripted with Richard Lieske), and the Grand Jury Prize for Drama in 2010 and Prix du jury at Deauville American Film Festival 2010 for her second feature, Winter’s Bone.

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Granik grew up in the suburbs of Washington D.C. She received her B.A. from Brandeis University in 1985, where she majored in politics. She later earned an MFA from the graduate film program at New York University (Tisch School of the Arts). Granik is the granddaughter of broadcast pioneer Theodore Granik (1907–1970), founder-moderator of radio-TV’s long-run panel discussion program, The American Forum of the Air… read more

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KarstenM

16Jan11

I agree a lot with RoryDean's comments about this film; promising in many ways, but ultimately flawed in its script and character depictions. Wonderful though to see Granik evolve further in "Winter's Bone".

rorydean

19Nov10

This is clearly Granik's precursor to her more successful and engaging Winter's Bone. Here the film gets bogged down in its own melodrama, blank stares and incomplete character arcs make one feel as though they started a movie late and left early. The ending is abrupt and unrewarding. I kept waiting for the mood to change, for a glimmer of something more and ultimately realized by the end that there wasn't more.