Are you fed up yet with the celluloid slough that's seeped into the multiplexes this summer? From the noisy thud of "Prince of Persia" to the lofty, soulless tedium of "Inception," the major studio offerings have consistently failed to dazzle, leaving them approximately one Airbender away from a class-action suit wherein we recoup our admission costs. (Not really, but one can dream.) Summer isn't usually the arthouse's time to shine, but judging from quality offerings like the wickedly subversive "Exit Through The Gift Shop" and the sweet, deadpan "Cyrus," independent cinema seems to be where it's at right now. And no film illustrates that better than Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone," a mesmerizing blend of Southern Gothic, twisty film noir, and bittersweet coming-of-age story that won top honors at the most recent Sundance Film Festival.

In what is perhaps this year's breakout performance, Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, a resourceful teenager caring for two younger siblings as well as her mother, now firmly in the grips of catatonia. Ree's meth-cooking father, Jessup, has long since lit out from their shabby homestead in the Missouri Ozarks, yet it's his absence that sparks the story to life. Ree learns that Jessup is due in court soon, and he's put his house and acreage up as bond. Or: if her father doesn't show, Ree and her already-struggling family will be without a home. "You make sure your daddy knows the gravity of this deal," the sheriff advises Ree, who puts her quiet panic aside and sets out to do just that.

Finding Ree's father, however, is easier said than done, especially once it becomes clear that the people in her close-knit community - mostly extended kin, and each with hands more proverbially dirty than the last - would prefer that Jessup not be found. Unpredictably violent types who give new meaning to the expression "blood ties," the men rule the roosts and the women keep their traps shut, though some, like Ree's wired uncle Teardrop (an excellently nuanced John Hawkes, "Deadwood"), prove to have their own drug-addled grace. With echoes of Rian Johnson's flawless "Brick," in which a similarly determined teen swims upstream trying to learn things that no one wants them to, "Winter's Bone" observes as Ree comes by her information the hard way, boldly forgoing the need for personal safety and enduring traumas that no 17-year-old should have to.

Granik (her first film was 2004's "Down to the Bone") and co-writer Anne Rosellini based their script for "Winter's Bone" on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, and their economical words, along with the stark location cinematography of Michael McDonough, provide the film with an ominous austerity. Neither backgrounds nor motives are always sketched out for us, leaving us to puzzle out connections and reasoning, which usually has to do with the basic art of self-preservation. "Winter's Bone" features surprising moments of backwoods beauty, like the melancholy jamboree that Ree happens upon (the helpful woman there should be familiar to anyone who ever wondered who killed Laura Palmer), while the performances, by both actors and non-professionals, have a necessary authenticity to them. Most memorable, though, is Lawrence, showing Hollywood's Jolies what tough is really made of.