The environment was harsh and grim, life was cruel but there was a certain code of honour, a strange sense of community, kindness and mercy in the midst of all the brutishness.
Well put Y Va. One thing about it is that there's no sense of senselessness. It turns out that everything that happens in the film, happens for a reason.
Watching it again it was apparent the pains the screenplay took to hint broadly at the logic of blood, feud, honour and payback used by the Dolly's "Ozark clan". When Teardrop says "What Jessup did was against our ways, he knew it, I know it - and I ain't kicked up no stink about whatever been done to him, " for example.
In the end it's quite an uplifting film because Ree walks into that system, beats that system, shames the wrongdoers, goes through the trial to get what's rightfully hers, and takes her place as a respected adult within that community.
And then of course Teardrop's closing lines: "I know. I know who." to balance that out with a bit o' grim.
Great film.
