I saw this a couple of weeks ago, so my thoughts are hardly fresh... but it was one heck of a powerful film, so I thought it worth posting a few thoughts about, to encourage people to see it!
One aspect of it I really enjoyed was that while its subject matter and, to a great extent, also its setting is pretty depressing and relentlessly miserable, I felt it had quite a positive underbelly, and actually did see some hope and positivity in the limited but genuine choices people living in poverty (in the US, that is) get to make - if they embrace them as choices, and act decisively.
In essence, the film follows the struggles of a young woman already looking after her two younger siblings and sick mother; when her father skips bail, their home is under threat and she has to make some very hard decisions, and chooses to put her life at risk to help her family, and to try to figure out what has happened and how she can prevent her entire family's life from being torn apart.
It presents some really interesting and insightful representations of wider family relations, has some genuinely frightening moments, and, to my mind, in what it doesn't show - and in the brutish realism of its story - is far more unpleasant at times than slly nonsense of the Saw variety.
Particularly interesting is the way in which different ways in which women in the family units are shown: the setting of the film is a poor community that makes much of its money from manufacturing crystal meth - and has strictly hierarchical ways in which it defends its senior members from the long arm of the law. It's hard to blog about it without ruining it for people who might want to watch it - but, in essence, it's worth watching, as its grimness is nicely countered, to my mind, by some beautiful filming, a not entirely gloomy outlook on what is, really, a rather gloomy life, and an impressive performance from its lead, Jennifer Lawrence.
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