Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 by Bill Swadley.

First published on The Huffington Post February 23, 2011

With the Oscars in the offing it’s become much more of a challenge for those of us who feel we must at least have seen all the Best Picture noms before the big day now that there are ten instead of just five. Many of us make sure we see at least the films that have a chance of winning and/or have significant possible wins in other categories. This means that some films get cut from the list of “must see before Oscar” when the deadline is near because of a complete lack of any possible wins. Winter’s Bone is one such film. Even though it has earned 4 Academy Award nominations, Winter’s Bone is unlikely to win any of them, so last minute Oscarheads will likely make the mistake to skip it.

Winter’s Bone is of those films a movie buff knows is a “must see” for many reasons, but often doesn’t want to because you everything you know about it says it’s not going to be “fun” to watch. It’s not. It’s painful. A painfully wonderful film, fully deserving of all the accolades it has received so far and more. Winter’s Bone redefines “gritty reality” by taking you to an unfamiliar place of chilling harshness that is impossible to escape.

Set in a crank-cooking community in the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone is the story of a young woman who must find her father in time for a court hearing or face losing her family home and only means of survival. When she boldly bursts into the unknown world her father has inhabited most of his life, she is confronted and hindered by people one might think would do all they could to help her cause.

On one hand there’s the family (almost everyone is related), on the other there’s the code. Don’t break the code and all is well, step outside the line, even a little, and a world of pain can descend so fast the was never time to even think about running. This reality is one 17-year-old Ree (the amazing Jennifer Lawrence), is just learning, and her uncle, Teardrop (brilliantly under-played by John Hawkes), knows all too well. In this tribe, blood my be thicker than water, but the code trumps all.

In the population of the cast one can see the innocence of the very young still fully intact in Ree’s baby sister, but already being stripped away from her 9-year-old little brother. You can see in the faces of every age in-between the harsh lessons life has taught and continues to teach, and the scars those lessons have left. Fear is the dominant emotion on the faces of many of the characters Ree asks for help as they refuse. When she persists, fear is replaced by distrust, anger, and finally vicious self-preservation. Winter’s Bone is about stark survival and it’s not a pretty picture. Everyone does what they feel they must to survive and make no apologies even when the results are tragic.

Last year The Hurt Locker took the best picture prize and so it doesn’t seem as unlikely as it once did that a “smaller film” can get the attention of The Academy in a meaningful way. Like a few others this year, though, Winter’s Bone seems lost in the shuffle amid all the hype surrounding the front-runners, but it’s one of the very best on the list.

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Monday, February 21st, 2011 by Bill Swadley.

 First published at The Huffington Post February 21, 2011

When I wrote about child support recently I knew I was touching on a hot topic, but I was still surprised at the high emotional level of conversation in the comments that followed. To be clear, I wasn’t advocating the implementation of some kind of draconian accountability system for how child support payments are utilized. While I don’t think it’s a bad idea on paper, the reality is that it would require another level of bureaucracy in an already dysfunctional system (in most states) , and would be nearly impossible to enforce. I was, however, suggesting, that the parent receiving excess support payments (”excess” definable by the conscience of that parent) put the extra money away for the child. In a college fund, for the down payment on their first car or apartment, etc.

A few people berated me for being vague in terms of my exact situation. Obviously that was intentional. I didn’t want the post to be about me, but I was willing to use my personal experience and that of various friends to question the status quo. In doing so I learned something from the ensuing conversation. According to the comments posted, a great many people paying and receiving child support feel they’re being abused. With much passion from both sides. It’s hard to tell from such an informal survey whether in equal numbers on both sides, but certainly both have their share of horror stories. Both sides. From people getting pathetically little compared to their cost of living to take care of their child full-time to joint-custodial parents paying thousands of dollars a month to a self-sufficient ex-spouse.

My main takeaway from the conversation was that the system most states use to determine and enforce spousal and child support doesn’t work very well. That’s not to say that if a divorced couple has the wherewithal to pay court and legal fees and a willingness and ability to repeatedly show up in court or mediation together they can’t find that perfect formula, but that’s not the case for everyone. Even if it were free, filing court petitions and attending hearings are time consuming. Taking care of kids is a full-time job even if you only have them 50% of the time, and hearings usually occur during the day when most people are working. Just thinking about it makes me tired. So, yes, if someone is getting the shaft in the post-divorce support situation there is legal recourse, it’s often just not very realistic to pursue.

What I read over and over again in the comments was that many people have been badly impacted by the system, are now struggling because of it, and are at a loss as to any remedy. This is one of those situations where one can see a problem very clearly and from every angle, but not even a hint of where the solution lies in terms of the system itself. Is anyone even working on it? Probably not. Then what’s the solution? Don’t get married? Don’t have kids? Don’t get divorced? If you do get married and have kids make sure you have a giant legal fund put away in case you get divorced? None of the above, obviously. People don’t think about divorce when they’re getting married and having kids and never will.

I was talking with a friend over the weekend about divorce and settlements and such. We’ve both been divorced for many years and have very accommodating attitudes in terms of scheduling with the exes. As 50-50 parents it often benefits everyone to allow for those unexpected business trips or nearly missed soccer practice drop-offs (especially the kids, of course). She pointed out that she wasn’t always that way. In the beginning, the schedule was the schedule. As if it were written in stone. It’s like that in the aftermath of divorce. It’s never, “We’re sticking to the schedule because the court says so.” It’s, “We’re sticking to the schedule because I hate you!”

What’s often missing is something even the most perfect state family law system can’t fix. Cooperation and empathy. From everyone, for everyone. I know, this is often impossible given the baggage that led up to the divorce, but for most parents the bottom-line is the welfare of the child, which hopefully goes beyond the monetary and way beyond hurt and anger.

I’ve heard good advice that parents put themselves in each other’s shoes to see if there might be a different perspective from that side of the fence, but I find that it’s even more important to put myself in my children’s place to see from their perspective what I’m teaching them.

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