A survival story in which a teenage girl, severed by tragedy from her home, goes in search of her estranged mother, Haroula Rose’s debut feature Once Upon a River has a superficial kinship with Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone. But rather than the sinewy toughness of that picture, this adaptation of the novel by Bonnie Jo Campbell is meandering in its pacing, losing power rather than building it as the story unfolds. Apart from the atmospheric wetland backdrop, the film’s main asset is Kenadi DelaCerna, self-possessed and soulful in the role of the part Native American 15-year-old, Margo Crane.
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