Winter's Bone compared to Captain Fantastic

In this I will be looking at both the films Winter's Bone and Captain Fantastic and comparing them with there themes as well as technical aspects. 

Winter's Bone  was released in 2010  and is directed by Debra Granik and helped Jennifer Lawrence go to stardom. The story is about a young woman called Ree, played by Lawrence, who needs to find her father in order for her family to not be evicted.It is a slow burner of a film. 
Captain Fantastic was released in 2016 and is directed by Matt Ross. It is about a family and a dad who raises his six children in the wild but tragedy forces them to go urban world.  


Both these films deal with lives in America that are not typically presented in films. In  Winter it is set in the mid west in Minnesota and shows a very rural life of working-class people and how they are trying to make ends meet. In Captain Fantastic 

The colour schemes in the films are other quite different swell as in Winter's Bone it is all very grey and dismal looking. This goes the audience a sense of how life is like in the small village and how it is mot very idealist and as well how it is quite an inhabitable place to live in. In Captain Fantastic many bright and vibrant colours are used. This helps present how great the families life is and the joys they face. The colour also shows that even in the darkest times in their life, they will still have joy in them and try to think positively .  

While the story lines are quite different the main characters intentions and motives  are still in the same vain. In Winter's Bone Ree is trying to look for her father so her families life does not go downhill and similarly in Captain Fantastic they are trying to find there mother and help settle their personal grief. Both these films deals with the idea of losing a parent and how to cope with it all. The films also shows how children and teenagers can be mature and very resourceful. These films are both modern and the young people in them are existing in the present but the audience may be in a bit of shock as we never really see young people represented in this way, trying to like a successful life. In Captain Fantastic it ironically shows us the cousins of the family and how they are very stereotypical teens playing video games and just being quite lazy.

The format of both these films are also both similar as the characters want to get from point A to B and there may be obstacles in the way that they may have to face. The films go in chronological order but in Captain Fantastic there are some flashbacks to there past life. 

Both of these films had similarly small budgets and are independent films as no big film companies are involved in producing  them . The budget for Winter's Bone was only $2 million and it made $13 million and Captain Fantastic had a budget of $5 million and made  just over its budget. While they both received critical success Winter's Bone became more known with Oscar nominations and launching Jennifer Lawrence's career. They are both very well made films and do have some similarities in the presentation of young people and there non typical stories.