Frozen River (2008) User Reviews

Gritty, cutting-edge crime drama.

[sonya90028 · 8/10 · 4 October 2008]

I recently saw Frozen River, at a local theater. This indie film revolves around two impoverished single mothers; one white, and the other a member of the Mohawk Native American tribe. The setting of the film takes place in the harsh, bleak climate of upstate NY, near the Canadian border during wintertime.

Melissa Leo is brilliant as the haggard, world-weary single mother, Ray. Ray's gambling-addict husband, has left her and their 2 sons in the lurch. Right before Christmas, he splits with the savings that Ray had planned to use as payment, for a better trailer home than the one her family has been residing in.

Ray tries in vain to support herself and her children, on income from a part-time retail job. She doesn't get the promotion to Manager, that she had expected at her job. As a result, Ray and her family are in dire economic straits; they subsist on popcorn and powdered juice, are on the verge of having their TV repossessed by a rent-to-own store, and face a Christmas without presents. Worst of all, the coveted 'double-wide' trailer home that Ray has long dreamed of purchasing, is an impossibility, without the savings that her husband ran off with.

In desperation, Ray goes looking for her husband in a gambling Casino, located in Mohawk tribal territory. One of the young Native American women of the tribe, Lila (played with a dry, dour efficiency by Misty Upham) steals the car that Ray's husband had abandoned, in the Casino parking-lot. Ray sees this, and pursues Lila to her tiny trailer home, located in a remote woodsy area.

Lila is also a single mom whose husband had died, and left her with a 1-year-old son to raise alone. Lila doesn't want to give Ray the car back, and doesn't respond to threats that Ray will turn Lila in to the local cops. According to Lila, white man's law is void in Mohawk territory. After a brief scuffle with Lila, Ray pulls a pistol, and shoots a hole in Lila's trailer. Frightened by this, Lila makes Ray an offer; if she lets Lila keep the car, then Ray can join Lila in her lucrative immigrant smuggling operation. Ray reluctantly agrees.

This film offers-up lots of stark, yet gorgeous, moody scenery. It dovetails well, with the gripping suspense of the smuggling-runs made by Ray and Lila. They must always keep one step ahead of the local State Troopers, hope that the sleazy smuggling kingpins pay them what they are owed, and complete their smuggling-runs without the frozen river caving in.

The basic premise of the film is grim, but highlights the lengths that two desperate single mothers could be driven to, in order to support their families. We need more films that address the serious plight of the working-poor, in American today. Especially films about poor single mothers, and the acute economic hardships that many of them face in today's economy.

The main problem with Frozen River, is that there are some implausible plot details, throughout the film. The producers obviously wanted to make a film with lots of emotional impact, and depth. They succeeded, but also should have made sure that they smoothed-out the rough edges in the storyline. Overall though, I would recommend Frozen River. The gorgeous cinematography, and especially the strong performances by the two lead actresses, make this film worth watching.

Independent film-making at its best

[mike_caccioppoli · 8/10 · 17 May 2008]

The town where Frozen River takes place is Massena, New York, a few miles from the Canadian border in the middle of a Mohawk reservation, and in the winter it's every bit as cold and grey as the film depicts. This is one of those films that depicts a slice of life that most of us aren't privy too and it seems to know its subject inside and out.

Frozen River is independent film-making at its best, both vital and timely. Writer/Director Courtney Hunt shows how otherwise law abiding people can be driven to do some shady things when there are no other options. While there may still be a great divide between Natives and non-Natives, the film depicts how economic hardship has no boundaries and in fact unites us. As Lila and Ray make those dangerous trips across the border with state troopers lurking all around them, Hunt pays considerable attention to the small details of human smuggling, and the result is a constant state of dread as if anything can go awry at any time. Leo is absolutely brilliant as Ray, and Upham (raised in Seattle) is a pure revelation as Lila. Frozen River shines a light on a dark corner of our nation, one that is an unfortunate result of a useless immigration policy and a failing economy.

Ah, But What Joyless Times We Live In

[Seamus2829 · 10/10 · 1 September 2008]

I had heard that this film was something of a runaway hit at Cannes last year. After seeing it, I can see why. 'Frozen River' is a grim little tale of a middle aged woman (Melissa Leo)who's good for nothing, substance abusing,gambler husband has left her & their two sons for points unknown (only after usurping all of the money from the bank--and this,just a week before Christmas). Rae (Leo)has to earn some money soon, or lose their trailer home. She resorts to smuggling illegal aliens (with the assistance of an Indian woman who dislikes whites)over the boarder,from Canada to the U.S., via the local Indian reservation. Toss in elements of a cynical teen aged son,and other similar elements,and you have yourself a powerful piece of drama that although somewhat bleak,manages to draw you in to the plight of people who want to fit in, but are never the less, not excepted,due to racial issues. Well worth seeking out. The film has been slapped an R-rating by the MPAA, due to some course language.

Introducing Melissa Leo

[axlgarland · 9/10 · 5 October 2008]

How extraordinary to find a forty-something actress you've never seen or heard about before and being blown away by her. Her name is Melissa Leo and I believe she is here to stay. She gives the most powerful performance I've seen all year. She managed to slip into my subconscious and I find myself thinking about her (about her character) as I do someone I truly care about. That in itself is a major achievement. A first time director, Courtney Hunt, gives this character and this actress a remarkable space to breath and grow. The gelid landscape envelopes the desolate story but there is a human warmth devoid of sentimentality that makes "Frozen River" a welcome rarity. Moving, suspenseful, not to be missed.

Female Denizens

[aharmas · 10/10 · 28 September 2008]

Here is a story that dares to explore a side of this country rarely seen in mainstream cinemas, a movie that subtly shows the politics of the drama which females must endure without the support of the male. For years we have admired the resilience of tough mother who endures all kinds of ordeals to protect her own, a woman who fears nothing and conquer all. We have seen honored and represent a political or ecological affiliation in films like "Norma Rae" and "Silkwood". Yes, they are female and strong and represent all of us, our indignation, the pain of our community.

"Frozen Rivers" is not taking political sides; as a matter of fact, it appears to condemn the very act that gets our two main characters in trouble. It focuses on the issues of survival and protection. The American Dream is already shattered. What matters now is to survive on something other than cereal and Tang.

Something smolders in this film, and it is the performance of Leo, as Ray, the mother who cries and fears the worst, but who doesn't understand the meaning of quitting. She is willing to compromise her views and push herself beyond what she has endured so far in order to feed and protect her children. She also learns that there might be others who are worse off than she is. She has lost a husband, but what do the others have? Why are they willing to take those chances and endure slavery? "Frozen River" does not have a happy ending, but there is plenty of hope in it, as we know that the worst is probably over. There are some exchanges, strategically placed between the main characters to know that we are willing to forgive and compromise, in order to allow for more growth and improvement.

It's a deceptively quiet film, but it does possess a very strong voice.

"Fargo" meets "A Christmas Carol"

[richard_sleboe · 7/10 · 13 October 2008]

Life ain't easy for Ray. She may have had it good, but now she's got it rough. Two kids. Gambling runaway husband. Working at the Yankee Dollar. On the icy brink of the unforgiving upstate New York wilderness. Living in a trailer. The best thing she can even think of is a bigger trailer. Bottles on bottles of bubble bath she may never open hold the promise of better days that may never break. That's how bad it is. Along comes Lila. In many ways, she has it even worse than Ray: living in an even tinier trailer, estranged from her family, bad eyes, out of work. But she is also a small-time player in the well-oiled trafficking industry, bringing aliens into the US from Canada. Desperate for a little extra cash to buy that bigger trailer, Ray gets involved. At first sight, writer-director Courtney Hunt's debut is as depressing as they come. But beneath rough surfaces, there is also hope. In fact, the many acts of love and kindness are all the more surprising given how hard life is on these people. Just when you think they hit rock bottom, a bona fide miracle comes their way. Says Lila: "That wasn't me. That was the hand of the creator." It may be a broken Halleluja, but it's a Halleluja all the same. - Fine performances all around. Sundance and Hamburg Film Festival winner.

Courtney Hunt brilliantly explores a rare genre: the humanistic thriller

[Benedict_Cumberbatch · 18 October 2008]

Courtney Hunt's début feature, "Frozen River", winner of this year's Sundance's Grand Jury Prize, is as tense as a great thriller should be, and also a heartfelt, poignant drama.

Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) was just abandoned by her druggie husband, having to take care of their two kids and pay for their house alone (otherwise, they'll be evicted). With her minimum wage job at a local store, Ray can't make enough money, but chance will introduce her to a young Mohawk, Lila (Misty Upham), who smuggles illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River (between New York State and Québec), and both will be forced to risk a lot in order to get the money they need.

Hunt's writing/directing is secure and reveals a very promising talent, but the film's major strength is the extraordinary performances of the lead actresses, in particular Melissa Leo ("21 Grams", "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"), magnificent character actress turned lead. Totally deglamourized, her screen presence is real, visceral, almost organic. A flawless performance in a great film, that is at once sad, suspenseful and hopeful. It's not every movie that makes you feel for and really care for its characters, but "Frozen River" is one of those rare gems. 10/10.

Fantastic Film - and a rare glimpse into the reality of life in Indian Country

[bgills-1 · 10/10 · 31 July 2008]

I caught a viewing of this tonight at the fantastic Traverse City Film Festival. The film was really fantastic. It is an indie flick very reminiscent of David Gordon Green's work (George Washington, All the Real Girls, etc) in pacing, cinematography, and the depth of character the director is able to elicit with profound minimalism. The plot centers around a Mohawk coyote who smuggles illegals across the St. Lawrence in the winter by driving back and forth between the Canadian and US segments of the Mohawk Reservation. The Mohawk are one of the few tribes that issue their own passports and directly challenge federal authority to regulate their border. Because the reservation covers areas in both nations there isn't much either side can do. For the Mohawk, sovereignty has real meaning, and they protect it fiercely.

The main character (aside from the Mohawk woman) is a white woman living in the area who's husband is a degenerate gambler and has taken off with the money she had saved to get them a new modular home. We never meet him, but nevertheless are given a good portrait of his and the family's struggles with his addiction. She needs $4k fast, stumbles into this smuggling business quite unexpectedly and decides its her only hope to avoid homelessness for herself and two kids. It's suspenseful, introspective, and the acting is top notch by everyone. I also loved how it provided a glimpse into one part of Indian Country few people even know exists, and treats the Indians as people rather than victims or otherwise attempts to cajole the audience into feeling something for them. They are just people. Just like us.

Highly recommended.

Lousy indie

[zetes · 5/10 · 24 August 2008]

Stereotypical indie from the sucks-to-be-poor subgenre. Hope I'm not being too glib. It does suck to be poor. I'm nowhere near wealthy myself, and I grew up with a mother under similar circumstances to the protagonist of this film (a little smarter, though; at least she realized that she was eligible for food stamps). I have more than just sympathy for her and people like her. But I am still suspicious of movies like this that lay it on so thick and seem to delight in jerking the audience's emotions around. The story follows a middle-aged woman (Melissa Leo) trying desperately to get by on her meager, part-time wages. Her husband is a thief and gambler, and has stolen the little money she has saved up to buy herself and her two sons a bigger trailer. Up the creek without a paddle, Leo meets up with a Mohawk woman from the nearby reservation (Misty Upham) who introduces her to the lucrative world of smuggling illegal immigrants across the Canadian border. First-time director and screenwriter Courtney Hunt seems to be following some kind of indie film-making book, because she makes sure to hit all the cliché bits. Everything is very predictable; everything that happens in the movie happens for a reason. For instance, every time a radio is on, the weather is reported, which will come back later in the story. The dots are all connected, and there's no room for character or mood building. The tone is pitched at that quiet, supposedly subtle level that so many indies are. The sequence that summarizes the movie is the one where Leo throws a duffel bag out the window of her car on the titular frozen river on a night that the radio, of course, tells us is going to be far below zero, because she's afraid that the Pakistani couple in her trunk might be terrorists. It turns out that their baby was in the bag. Horrible, right? Well, Leo's reaction is, "Well, we'll just have to go back and get it." She's so nonchalant about it, I was sure I must have mistakenly heard "baby". It turns out to be dead. Later, after one of the dozen or so contrivances that drive the film, the baby comes back to life in an apparent miracle. No reaction, at least from Leo. The event ends up changing Upham's outlook on life, but there's no grandiose reaction from her, either. The point is, anyway, that Hunt uses these silly, melodramatic situations which are completely unsubtle, and then she insists with her film-making that her movie is, in fact, subtle. I do have to admit that both Leo and Upham are decent actresses in the movie. I don't think either are award-worthy. It doesn't help that Leo's character often seems so profoundly stupid that it would be easy enough for a privileged audience to dismiss her with, "Well, someone like her deserves to be poor!" I like the attempt Hunt makes in exploring the subtle (and occasionally overt) racism of the white people in the film, but sometimes it feels like she wrote the script without any of it, and someone who read it suggested she add it to give it some more depth. Honestly, if she made it her focus and not just the sideline to the sucks-to-be-poor material, Frozen River would have been a more vital movie. As it is, it's rather poor, and definitely forgettable.

Sure to be a classic Indie film

[buzzbruin · 1 August 2008]

For a first time director, a superb job, The general theme is single mothers fighting for their very life. Living on next to nothing,trying to raise their children with almost no resources but their own courage. They are at the very edge of society living in forbidding land of ice snow and frozen lakes and rivers. Both Melissa Leo and the native American woman must make terrible choices in order to live. Despite what the main stream critics have said, the picture is photographed wonderfully and there are no cheap props other indications of cheap film. The actors are fabulous and the characters are interesting, true to life and the story makes sense. This film is a classic, and I hereby nominate both female leads for Oscars. see this film ASAP!!

Courtney Hunt: Fresh Blood to Hollywood with an Independent spirit

[CihanVercan · 7/10 · 15 February 2009]

Reminded me Ridley Scott's Thelma&Louise(1991), this film debut of director and writer Courtney Hunt delivers us a compulsory participation of the two opposite characters. Melissa Leo and Misty Upham perform two innocent and mature women driven into the crime world after desperation.

Frozen River carries a vital independent spirit that even though the value of contents of the film is so unassuming, it brings in both sentimental and intellectual prestige. Directing, editing and storytelling are so plain. Cinematography, lights and sound work, score are out-of-service. There is absolutely no cinematic aspect but the theme. Since it's an independent production we primarily come across to a thorough presentation of this theme. It has been worked up so effectively and is as plausible as a documentary.

A great commitment and well-created atmosphere by Courtney Hunt. All actors have done a good job. Might feel boring if not seen for personal view.

Thelma & Louise meet Dances with Wolves

[Turfseer · 3/10 · 26 September 2008]

Here's another Indie with lofty aspirations as an art film. It's an original story: Ray (played by Melissa Leo), a mother of two children has just had her gambler husband run off with the down payment on a new trailer she was in the process of purchasing. She lives in upstate New York right near a Mohawk reservation. A Mohawk Indian woman (Lila) tries to steal her car and they end up becoming partners smuggling illegal aliens from Canada. Ray drives her car with Lila over the frozen river inside the Mohawk Reservation and picks up the illegal aliens on the other side of the border and then drives them back to New York.

Right away I had a hard time buying that the gambler husband would simply abandon his family. Okay, there are gambling addicts who do crazy things but it is established that he has a good relationship with his sons and wouldn't he at least be keeping in touch? Then there's Ray who doesn't seem to have any relationships outside of her interactions with her children. And when she does interact with her teenage son, they are always having very unpleasant, grating conversations throughout the film. Despite being a good mother and presumably someone who's never had interactions with criminals before (she tells Lila that she's never done anything criminal like smuggling before), it just so happens that she packs a gun and pulls it out right away the first time the two go on their smuggling run! Not believable. Also New York Police not being allowed to investigate a felony on tribal land doesn't sound right. And then there's the whole problem of why the Elders allowed Lila to take the baby away from the paternal grandmother who they awarded custody to after blaming Lila for having a hand in the death of her husband as well as her overall bad behavior.

The midpoint of a film is usually where the protagonist commits herself to her objective fully. The midpoint in Frozen River is when Ray and Lila pick up a Pakistani couple and are about to drive them back to New York. Unbelievably Ray has never heard of "Pakistan" but she's aware of the phenomena of suicide bombers. She takes a package that the woman is holding and puts it in the backseat. While driving at night over the river, it occurs to her that there might be something dangerous in the package (such as a bomb) and without really inspecting the package, throws it out of the car onto the frozen river. When she delivers the couple to a motel owner smuggler back in NY State, the two women discover that there was a baby in the package. So they retrace their route in the car, and Lila (who has trouble with her eyesight) somehow recalls the spot where they threw the package, recover the baby and return it to the grieving couple. The baby, who seemingly was dead since it was out in the cold, comes back to life after Lila warms the infant up in the car. Why a mother (even a scared illegal alien) would ever allow a stranger to take a baby away from her did not seem credible in the least nor did Ray's failure to really inspect the package.

The second act "crisis" involves Ray and Lila's last smuggling run where they transport two Chinese girls over the river. Before they put the girls in the trunk, Ray pulls out her gun once again and ends up in a shootout with a smuggler. Of course she's only wounded superficially in the ear. The car gets stuck in the slightly thawing ice and Ray, Lila and the two girls flee to the Mohawk reservation. At first, Ray wants Lila to take the rap and give herself up to the police. In a reversal, she sacrifices herself by surrendering to the police. With a sentimental flourish, she's told that she's only facing 4 months in jail for smuggling. Meanwhile, Lila 'takes back' her child from her dead husband's mother and for some reason, the tribal elders (who had ruled against her earlier) say nothing when she removes the child from the reservation. Lila (at the behest of Ray) arrives at the trailer and will take care of Ray's kids for the four months she's locked up. Oh by the way, Lila's eyesight is restored when she gets a pair of eyeglasses. And what about when Ray's teenage son almost burns down the trailer while using a blow torch to deice frozen water pipes? While it appears that a small section of the trailer is damaged from the small fire set by the teenager, the trailer itself does not appear to be structurally damaged. But Ray proclaims that the trailer is 'ruined' and that's why she's now desperate to make one last run to obtain the cash to make the down payment on the new trailer.

All the principals here must must have 'hearts of gold', including the teenage son--he's guilty of committing credit card fraud by victimizing elderly people on the Mohawk reservation and finds some measure of redemption after being forced by the tribal elders to apologize to one of his elderly victims. While Lila has a grudge against the 'white man' and rationalizes her smuggling as payback for mistreatment of her people, she's really not a bad person at all. And similarly, Ray, who knows what she's doing is wrong, is also not a bad person (she only gets the four months of 'hard time'). All's well that end's well when the new trailer arrives just in time for the New Year (presumably purchased with ill-gotten gains). Frozen River would have been much more of an interesting film if the screenwriter decided not to endow her characters with those one-dimensional hearts of gold and serve up such an unbelievable story with a predictable and sentimental ending.

Realistic and Depressing Story

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 1 August 2009]

In Massena, New York, nearby a Mohawk Reservation and the Canadian border, the middle-aged Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is left by her husband a couple of days before Christmas. Her husband is a gambler and stole the family savings and the car, driving to an unknown destination and leaving Ray alone and without money to raise her two sons. When she sees the Mohawk Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham) driving her car, she follows the woman up to her trailer to retrieve the car. Lila lures her telling that she has a buyer for the vehicle, but she actually wants to use the large trunk to smuggler illegal immigrants from Canada into the United States through a frozen river in the Mohawk Reservation. Ray unsuccessfully tries to convince her boss to promote her in her part time job; without any alternative to make honest money, Ray decides to associate to Lila to raise enough money to pay for her dream house and do not lose her down payment.

"Frozen River" is an overrated little movie with a realistic and depressing story of two women that smuggle people to raise money to support their families. Melissa Leo has a stunning performance in the role of a desperate mother that is going to lose the house she has dreamed to raise her sons after her addicted husband stealing the family savings. Unfortunately the plot is short and for viewers that live in Third World countries, the drama is Ray is original only in the environment. Her financial situation does not justify the smuggling and is equivalent (or worse) than poor people acting as mules transporting drugs for example. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Rio Congelado" ("Frozen River")

Pick Up The Broken Pieces And Survive

[Chrysanthepop · 25 March 2009]

'Frozen River' gives us a glimpse of the life of poor working class Americans, something that is rarely seen in films nowadays. While it is known that the poor are homeless or they become criminals such as being part of a gang, robbery etc. Very little is seen about the working class who are almost penniless but just manage to get by with their daily struggle and a thankless job.

'Frozen River' tells the story of two such single mothers. One is a Mohawk widow who earns her bucks by smuggling people into the states through the frozen river. She hopes to provide enough to raise her son who is in the custody of her mother-in-law. The other is a white mother of two whose husband just took off with all the money she saved for a house and is left in despair as she has to pay off debts. An unexpected encounter with her Mohawk counterpart allows her a possibility.

First timer Courtney Hunt does a fabulous job as writer and director. She's clearly put a lot of heart into making the film. She has chosen a very minimal approach (e.g. minimal dialogues, raw scenery, restrained performances from actors etc) but the saying 'less is more' really can easily be applied this case. The dialogues are of a few words but they speak volumes. The snowy landscape is beautiful but at the same time scary (who would dare drive over a frozen river?).

Melissa Leo finally gets a role that explores her acting capability to the fullest. She's always been a talent that was waiting to be exposed and 'Frozen River' does just that. The actress isn't afraid to look her worst in front of the camera all for the benefit of the role and quietly breathes fire into her character. Misty Upham is another underused actress who shines as Lila. She manages to hold her own with Leo. Her lack of experience as an actress in contrast to Leo's filmography may be what has worked for her as a single mother who is rather young and new to motherhood while Ray is someone with two kids (one of whom is a 15 year old).

In 'Frozen River' the broken American dream is broken but one has to survive. We see the immigrants moving in harsh conditions to be a part of this dream and we see Lila and Ray pick up the broken pieces of that dream and find a way to survive only to provide their kids a better future. 'Frozen River' is a gem.

Dirty And Sleazy But Reality

[alexkolokotronis · 7/10 · 30 January 2009]

Frozen River never even gets close to something of a positive tone. The movie is about a mother of two having her husband abandon them on 10 days before Christmas. To make matters worse the family is in dire straits needing money. As a result Melissa Leo, who plays the mother, begins to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border to make money.

Melissa Leo's performance in this movie is very good but hard to watch. The movie is tough and shows poverty in American and in Indian reservations continuously. Her performance showed the desperation of a single mother and the price she will pay to get what she needs.

The writing and directing of the movie was executed very well but I couldn't help but just have a bad feeling after the movie. I'm fine with negative movie but there seemed to be almost no hope for anyone in this film. Some stretches were of the film were dragging on but still a good film. If your in the mood watch this movie.

Solid Film Marred by an Ending That Felt False

[evanston_dad · 7/10 · 18 February 2009]

The illegal immigrant dispute between the U.S. and Mexico has been such a hot-button topic lately that I never think about illegal immigration being a problem between the U.S. and Canada.

"Frozen River" uses that very issue as a backdrop for its story about a desperate single mother (Melissa Leo) in upstate New York who turns to illegal smuggling as a means for making money to buy her and her two sons a new home. It's a sombre, indie-vibe film, one of those movies where the color scheme is predominantly gray and brown and the action is set in some location you can't ever quite believe summer visits. Just in case we didn't understand the significance of the film's title, director Courtney Hunt inserts shots of a literally frozen river periodically throughout the movie. The whole thing is probably authentic but it's also pretty depressing.

I'm thrilled that Melissa Leo received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, because she's a hard-working actress who's appeared in a number of striking roles that have gone without recognition. But while I thought she was very good, I wasn't wowed by her. The film's final moments, in which Leo's character finds redemption, felt false to me. I guess the movie needed something uplifting to balance out its bleakness, but I didn't buy that this mother, whose actions throughout the entire movie were motivated by the instinct to provide for her children, would then agree to leave them in the hands of someone she barely knows while she goes off to spend four months in jail.

Misty Upham, who plays Leo's partner in crime, gives a quietly remarkable performance.

Grade: B+

Realistically bleak locale -- but not much else rings true

[scrbblr · 5/10 · 2 January 2009]

I'm afraid I side with Michael McGonigle and "Turfseer" and "zetes," who, as of this writing, have offered up the only negative appraisals of this film (and extremely perceptive ones at that).

Aside from an excellent performance by Charlie McDermott as a resourceful 15-year-old, "Frozen River" has one major virtue: the bleak, wintry, impoverished upstate New York setting, which lends the movie its tone. It was apparently shot in Plattsburgh, and let's just say the town does not come off as a garden spot. I've lived and worked in places like that, and they definitely aren't charming in the winter -- especially if, as in this film, you concentrate on shabby trailers, bare front yards, clapboard general stores, slate-grey skies, and lonely, icy roads. Which is fine, by the way; it's a genuine slice of northern America, raw and poor and forbidding, and I assume it is this setting that's mainly responsible for the acclaim the movie has received -- this and the landscape's human equivalent, Melissa Leo's hard, unglamorous, unyouthful face.

That raw, hardscrabble locale is certainly what attracted me to the film. And in fact, "Frozen River" seems to have been given something of a pass by critics because of its gritty look, because it gives a starring role, for a change, to an unglamorous middle-aged actress, and because it displays familiar liberal sympathies (for impoverished single moms, Native Americans, and desperate illegal Third World immigrants, including two very attractive young Chinese women).

Unfortunately, bleak look aside, "River" was a well-intentioned disappointment. For one, it's all too predictable: You KNOW that when Ray (Melissa Leo's character) tosses a Pakistani couple's suspicious bundle out the car window into the snow, she'll later learn there was a baby inside; you know that the baby will eventually be returned alive (Ray's the heroine, for God's sake, not a baby-killer); you know that Ray and Lila, the Mohawk woman, are going to overcome their mutual hostility as the film progresses and that, in a show of transracial solidarity, they'll bond and learn to respect each other; you know that something's going to go wrong on that "one last smuggling run" the two women are compelled to take.

I concur with my three fellow IMDb commenters that the Pakistanis' passivity in handing over their baby to strangers -- and in the face of its apparent death -- seems downright unbelievable; ditto Ray's unseen husband's running off at Christmastime with the family's meager savings; ditto Ray's inability to put decent food on the table in this era of food stamps; ditto a clumsy, unconvincing scene in which Lila, previously denied her baby, simply strolls into her mother-in-law's home and, ignoring said mother-in-law, silently walks off with the child. Too many scenes, like this one, just come off looking amateurish.

But the main problem I had is with the unrealistically spare dialogue -- as if the director/screenwriter had scribbled down a few bare bones of conversation in the expectation that her actors would improvise, build upon them, and flesh out the scenes, only to have the actors stick to those few curt words.

People who live in rural communities and small towns TALK to one another. They talk a lot -- often too much, I've found. They tell stories; they ramble on. They're known for it down south, but they do it up north as well. They are amiable and humorous; even when they have something serious to say, they say it with a smile. It's how they get along, especially in a somewhat inhospitable environment, because they have to rely on one another. It's what cements a community. In short, people up there are generally friendly. (In fact, let me go further: Assuming circumstances don't compel them to be otherwise, human beings as a species are generally friendly.)

Yet filmmakers -- with some unconscious class condescension, I suspect -- are always depicting their northern rural characters as curt and taciturn and dour, as if the filmmakers assume that these people are as hard-bitten as the landscape. (In "Affliction," a similarly unsatisfying movie set in a wintry small town, this time in New England, I recall that most of the characters treated the hero -- a disgraced onetime local law-enforcement officer, played by Nick Nolte -- with rudeness and undisguised contempt. And it simply didn't ring true. First, you don't keep dumping on someone Nick Nolte's size; second, people want to be buddies with cops and sheriffs, even former ones; third, the entire populace seemed improbably sour and nasty.)

Repeatedly, in "Frozen River," we're shown what passes for "conversations" that consist of a few muttered words back and forth, whereas in real life there'd be lots and lots of talk. One weirdly perfunctory scene has a Mohawk man demand that Ray's teenaged son apologize to an old woman the boy has tried to scam. The boy mumbles "Sorry" and walks away; the man instantly accepts it and drives off with the woman. It's a clueless screenwriter's idea of how a scene like that might play out among taciturn rural types; it's utterly fake, unconvincing, and, again, amateurish. And a crucial scene at the end, in which Lila arrives at Ray's trailer with her child and simply barges in on the son without explanation and with practically no words exchanged, seems almost ludicrous, as if the screenwriter had just plain run out of inspiration.

Like Nothing You Have Seen Before (and that's not good!) Trite, Illogical And Profoundly Annoying!

[Michael-70 · 1/10 · 22 August 2008]

I generally try to find something positive to say about a director's first film. But I can't with Frozen River.

I have no doubt that writer/director Courtney Hunt is passionate about her story and characters, but this film is so ludicrous, so completely unbelievable and the characters so unbelievably stupid that I felt insulted watching it.

I know there are people in the USA who are desperately poor. I'm not being cavalier, life isn't always easy and I have no problem with films that want to show that, but making a whiny, dumb film about stupid people is of no help to anyone.

An overwrought Hollywood melodrama is more instructive and socially redeeming than anything in Frozen River. You want to make a serious cinematic statement? Then make a serious film Goddamn it! Not a laughable collection of idiotic moments strung together to run 97 minutes.

As Frozen River begins, we meet Ray (Melissa Leo) sitting in one of her two cars crying because her gambling addict husband has run off with money she was holding as payment for the delivery of a "double wide" trailer.

Right on cue, the double wide arrives and Ray has to explain that she doesn't have the money she promised. Then, trailer delivery person said something that hit me hard. He mentions that this is the second time that Ray has ordered delivery of the double wide and for the second time, she has not had the money she owes.

Am I to understand that Ray is so dumb she doesn't realize that reneging on a deal means you don't get delivery of the goods? Her own teenage son notes that it was really stupid for Ray to have hidden the trailer payment in the glove compartment of her car.

Apparently, this is not the first time Dad has run off with household money to gamble. I understand that Ray is among the working poor but is she really so bad off that she can only offer popcorn and Tang as supper for her kids?

Isn't there any welfare or Food Stamps in New York State? How about a Salvation Army soup kitchen? What about a "Faith Based" initiative in the area? Is there really no one who can help?

While I was trying to figure this out, we meet Lila (Misty Upham), a Mohawk woman who steals one of Ray's cars and drives it back to her small trailer in the woods.

Ray follows her and confronts Lila by brandishing a gun. Ray threatens to call the State Police and report this car theft, but Lila laughs at this saying the State Police have no jurisdiction on Mohawk land.

What? The NY State Police have no jurisdiction in dealing with a felony? Yes they do! There is such a thing as the Tribal Police, but they have only limited authority and the State Police are obliged to investigate any felony, including auto theft. Even on Mohawk land. Look it up, I did.

While I was trying to process this legal idiocy, Lila, apropos of nothing, tells this strange white trash woman with a gun, whose car she has just stolen, that she is a smuggler of illegal aliens across the Canadian border and wants her help because her car has a trunk that can popped open from the driver seat. And Ray agrees to do it!

We can understand why Ray helps in the smuggling, she is getting good money; less clear is why Lila does it. It has something to do with Lila's bitterness at having her child removed from her custody by the Mohawk tribe.

Although the film NEVER explains why this was done, just think about it for a minute. The whole tribe decided that the baby would be better off without Lila. If we are to accept the Tribal Elders wisdom in other areas, don't we have to accept it here as well?

At this point the film becomes intolerable. A few very annoying observations, why is every character in a bad mood or grumpy? Why does the trailer salesman schedule Christmas Day as the day for finalizing the deal for Ray's new double wide? Christmas Day?

Here's a mystery, we are told many times that Lila has bad eyesight and can't work because of it. Her vision problems can't even be helped with glasses, "they make me car sick," Lila tells us. Her eyesight is so poor she can't write legibly or even count the money she gets from her smuggling activities; she has to ask Ray if a particular bill is a fifty or a twenty.

But then later in the story, when Ray and Lila are looking for a discarded duffle-bag on the frozen river, Lila finds it by seeing faint tire tracks, on smooth black ice, at night, from a moving car. Huh?

This film actually made my brain hurt. Remember, just because you have an important topic and a serious purpose, that does not mean the film you make is important and serious.

Personally, I like characters that are unlikable. I mean, neither the Godfather nor Hamlet are very likable characters; but they are at least interesting characters. I have no problem with dumb characters either, Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo was a first class dolt, but he was as fascinating as he was pathetic.

I did not care for any of the morons who populated Frozen River and I was reminded of the cruel truth that some people really do deserve the hard luck they have.

When the only enjoyable part of a film is a scene where an infant stuffed in a duffle-bag nearly freezes to death on a frozen river, that should give you an indication of just how incredibly dumb and inept the rest of the movie is.

Reasonably good bleak indie drama but weakness in the material lets it down

[bob the moo · 26 July 2009]

Frozen River comes to the UK at a weird time – the sun is in the sky and we are in the middle of summer. So it is already jarring to enter a world of snow, cold and poverty while it is beautiful outside but soon it was able to engage me in this new setting. This is the film's main strength actually because it does convince as a reality and I did feel like I was watching the small desperation of those with nothing who are just trying to get by. This is a study in miniature of this and I can understand why some people would find it to be a bit too slow paced but I actually thought that it was paced pretty well and gave time to the two main characters to develop to the necessary point. The problems with the film come more from the actual narrative though because the events and also aspects of the bigger picture are not that convincing.

It isn't that I don't believe in the concept (I do) it is just that I didn't totally buy where it went and it did sort of clunk at the end somewhat. Of equal concern though is that, beyond being a bleak picture of poverty there didn't seem to be much else to it. Sure it works well in this regard but it doesn't expand on much or really nail the experience so much as it does just one character. There is a market for the downbeat indie drama though and this film will fill that very well – I just wish it had had more to say beyond just showing me bleakness. No criticism for Melissa Leo though because she is great in it – to the point that I didn't think about how good her performance was so much as just accept this is who she was. Upham is not as good and I struggle to understand her character or see what she was doing. McDermott is not that great either in a simple role although he (and others) suffer due to the lack of complexity in the material.

What results then is a film that engages despite the slow pace but ultimately doesn't challenge and inform as much as it should have done and crumbles somewhat towards the end as the plot doesn't totally work. It is still reasonably good as a bleak indie drama and it does have some very good things about it but the lack of depth in the material lets it down.

Living on the edge of Canada, dire poverty, and doom

[Chris Knipp · 6/10 · 26 August 2008]

In this "acclaimed Sundance drama," first-time director Courtney Hunt explores the situation of a desperate white American family living near the border between New York and Quebec. A Mohawk reservation overlaps the border in a sort of free zone. Driving over the frozen water of the title allows Ray Eddy (veteran actress Melissa Leo) temporarily to earn quick money by smuggling illegals into the US with the grudging assistance of a young Mohawk woman called Lila (Misty Upham), who's done it before. Ray's husband is a gambling addict who's gone missing right before Christmas leaving Ray to make balloon payments on a dreamed of three-bedroom "double wide" trailer home and a rent-to-own flat-screen TV. She's left alone with two sons, five and fifteen, with Christmas days off. On her part-time job at The Yankee Dollar, she's not going to make it. The dice are not turning up right for the Eddys.

A feeling of doom pervades 'Frozen River' from the opening tight closeup of Leo's deeply lined face as she sucks on a cigarette and quietly weeps. Things are so bad, the regular fare in the house is popcorn and Tang. Ricky (James Reilly) is a small boy who needs to be watched. He wants some violent video game for Christmas. The remaining male in charge is Ricky's photogenic fifteen-year-old brother T.J. (Charlie McDermott, whose first appearance was in Shyamalan's The Village). T.J. sees through mom's promises that all will be well and staunchly refuses to eat another popcorn-Tang dinner.

Ray's visit to the local bingo hall in search of her lost husband leads her to spot that Lila is driving his car, which he's abandoned. She follows Lila to the "res" to confront her and one thing leads to another. Inexplicably and not particularly in character, Ray pulls out a pistol and shoots it to get Lila's attention.

This is how it goes more or less from then on. There is a certain compulsive watchability to Hunt's downbeat tale in the way Ray must commit one desperate act after another in her misguided effort to avoid the worst Christmas ever. But this very intensity prevents the film from being allowed to breathe--to grant its characters a moment of reflection, to grant us in the audience a chance to get the feel of the locations. A cup of tea--or a glass of Tang--shared between the two women; anything to let us know them better. Instead many little plot details are slipped in, sometimes inconsistently and unconvincingly, complicating things without deepening them. And anybody with minimal perspective would see that this story is rigged, and often carelessly so.

The smuggling runs that constitute the film's claim to "thriller" status are clumsy, wordless affairs. A couple of Chinese men and then a couple of Chinese women are loaded into the trunk and money passed into the car and laboriously counted. For some reason Lila, whose vision is poor, has no glasses, so Ray has to do the counting as well as drive. A Pakistani couple get the same treatment and a hair-raising, and ultimately highly dubious, episode involves their backpack, which Ray tosses into the snow instead of bringing it along. As an example of the shaky writing, Ray expresses complete ignorance of Pakistan yet immediately assumes the couple are terrorists and their bag loaded with explosives or poisons. T.J. too gets into trouble, conning a lady, apparently Indian, into giving him her credit card number over the phone. How do the res police trace this back to him later? Another fudged detail. 'Frozen River' needs a lot of edits and more time spent on developing the sense of place. Despite the ostensible location this has the feel of a generic miserabilist weepy.

Contrast this with Lance Hammer's terrific recent film 'Ballast,' a drama about poor black people in the Mississippi Delta. 'Ballast's' starting points closely resemble 'Frozen River's:' grim poverty, a stark rural setting, family conflict, a missing father, a teenage boy led astray partly because of the mother's inability to cope through a job much like Ray's in 'Frozen River'. But Hammer wisely kept it simple, including a shooting early on not for drama so much as to start things off, thereafter mixing the direness with the everyday, letting the characters emerge as individuals. Religiously pursuing regional flavor, Hammer drew all his actors from the area. He listened to the voices, and created an outstanding sound design. He allowed the story to move in a positive direction. He also let scenes unfold at their own pace, soaking up the atmosphere and allowing the people to seem authentic. Ballast's action is just as intense, but its characters work with what they've got instead of pursuing illegal fantasies. There's never a detail that feels wrong. In 'Frozen River,' many do, some are factually inaccurate, and scenes are awkward.. Hunt's film revels in desperate details, yet has a soft, inconclusive ending. If your people are doomed, let the doom come! Despite the awards, Hunt has a lot to learn.

Ebony and Ivory

[tieman64 · 19 July 2010]

Written and directed by Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River" stars Melissa Leo as Ray Eddy, an impoverished woman who lives with her two sons in a dilapidated trailer in upper state New York. Ray's gambling addicted husband took off a week ago, leaving Ray struggling to come up with the cash necessary to replace her crumbling mobile home. To make ends meet, Ray hooks up with Lila, a Mohawk woman who ferries illegal immigrants across the frozen river that separates Canada and New York.

Like most recent flicks which receive accolades on the indie circuit (it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance), "Frozen River" is another tale about the woes and struggles of destitute small towners. But whilst most of these films fetishize poverty, using slum life as an excuse to serve up simple shocks, "Frozen River" offers something more honest and tender; it genuinely attempts to capture the anxieties of its poverty stricken characters.

These anxieties are conveyed in various ways: Ray hiding her tears from her children, Ray nervously sucking on a cigarette, Ray scrounging for spare change, a son matter-of-factly putting out a fire, a son intuitively appreciating his mother's attempts to shield the family from worry, a son scraping together the cash necessary to buy his younger brother a Christmas present etc etc.

The most interesting thing in Hunt's film, though, is the large screen TV which the family fights to keep its hands on. With a screen that is always blasting garishly coloured cartoons, this television helps maintain a double lie: its psychedelic images serve to distract Ray's little son from the family's financial woes, whilst its domineering presence in their tiny living room, and its status as an expensive, purely recreational object, helps maintains the illusion that the family is well-to-do. The television also injects a depressing irony: that the family's only escape from their monetary problems is a fickle ball and chain itself dependent on money (a monthly rental fee).

Ultimately, however, "Frozen River" is less interested in chronicling Ray's problems than in highlighting the way horizontal differences between races are less a divider than the vertical differences between wealth and class. A poor white woman and a poor Mohawk woman, in other words, are in the same rat race, Ray and Lila both disenfranchised mothers burnt by men and struggling to hold on to their families. Like a cross between "Thelma and Louise" and "Dances With Wolves", the film thus advocates a kind of sisterhood in which women - despite mutual, racially based suspicions - find common-ground in their shared economic anxieties and strong maternal instincts. We're poor, we're mothers, and that's all that matters. You go girl!

The "Frozen River" of the film's title is thus symbolic of a kind of uneasy bridge between cultures. A mass of dark, wet, cold resentment may be flowing underneath, but that thin road of ice on top nevertheless provides fragile common ground; support.

Director Courney Hunt thus goes to great lengths to stress the similarities between Ray and the very immigrants she smuggles into the country. Both Ray and her cargo are in search of homes and security: she wants to save up enough money to buy a new trailer, they want to find a new country to live in. But Hunt's point is that Ray and her cargo are both indentured to a system that both promotes the American Dream and keeps this Dream at arms length. Yes, at the end of the film Ray gets her trailer, but she's paid for it by selling her soul, breaking the law and becoming imprisoned. The immigrants Ray transports have likewise reached a new "home", but will have to spend much of their lives as slaves, imprisoned and indebted by the very blackmarket handlers who brought them into the country. Capitalism as debt slavery, the film's portrays bondage as something inescapable. Indeed, as post neoclassical economists show, debt under capitalism is not something that can be managed; it increases and is increasingly shunted upon others.

Finally, unlike most "feminist flicks" (the film isn't a gender sermon), which go to lengths to "demonize" men, "Frozen River" offers a very kind view of "men". Yes, unsavoury men run the smuggling operations in the film (one is a Canadian who owns a strip club, the others are shady Native American Indians), but blame is never placed upon Ray's husband ("He has an addiction," Ray tells her son apologetically) and the various law enforcers in the film are never treated as the enemy.

Of course, if you talk to some militant feminist, very few genuinely feminist films have been made. To such folk, our cultural or predominant narrative structure is shaped strongly around the pattern of the male sexual experience (setup, building tension, climax, then resolution), a trend which existed before the Greeks and is still deeply embedded in our modern culture.

8.5/10 – An excellent debut. Perhaps the film's biggest drawback, though, is its very genre, Sundance and the indie circuit churning out numerous similar "poverty flicks" every year ("Hounddog", "Gummo", "George Washington", "Undertow", "Black Snake Moan", "Precious", "Ballast", "Sherrybaby" and the South American film "Maria Full of Grace", also about a woman who resorts to illegal smuggling). Some of the best of these films include "Wendy and Lucy" and "Land of Plenty". Worth two viewings.

The smugglers

[jotix100 · 9/10 · 2 March 2010]

Life has not been kind to Ray Eddy, the mother of two boys, and a husband with a gambling addiction. As this sad tale starts, Ray find herself in one hell of a predicament. She is about to receive her new trailer, and doesn't have enough money to pay the man that is bringing it to her because her old man took it all to gamble in Atlantic City. To make matters worse, this place where she lives, upstate New York, near the Canadian border is an inhospitable place, where winters are harsh, lasting forever.

Ray is working part-time at a dollar store, probably making minimum wage. The dilapidated small trailer in which Ray and the two boys live is an uncomfortable place to be. She even feeds pop corn and Tang as dinner to the kids. Her prospects for earning more are almost nil. At this point of the story, she visits the bingo parlor in search for her man. What she finds, instead, is a Mohawk woman, Lila Littlewolf, getting into his car, parked outside, which she drives away to the reservation.

Lila Littlewolf's life is not much different from Ray's, with the exception that she is involved in a somewhat lucrative business smuggling illegal aliens across the border. She needs Ray's husband car because the big trunk will hold at least two people to take to the American side. Ray and Lila don't see eye to eye when they meet. Lila, who is a single mother herself, has been robbed of her baby by her mother-in-law, who took the infant away.

Lila asks Ray to help her as she will split the profit with her. Thus, Ray decides to go along. The main obstacle is the crossing of the frozen river that separates the U.S. and Canada, where the illegals are held by Quebecois criminals. At first, everything goes well, but sure enough, the local police are know about the smuggling Lila. Ray, being white, has a better chance of not being a suspect. Unfortunately, things come to a head when the police give chase to the car in which Ray and Lila are taking two Chinese illegals across the border.

Ray, who up to this point is in the scheme to get enough money for the new trailer, sees a different angle when she and Lila enter the Mohawk reservation, where supposedly the police has no jurisdiction, after being followed. Ray has a change of heart and realizes that Lila has to pay a greater prize for her actions.

"Frozen River", written and directed by Courtney Hunt, marks one of the best film debuts in recent memory. Desperation and poverty draw two opposites to do a criminal act. Ray and Lila are as different from day and night, yet the two women come together because they have understood they are basically the same. Necessity makes them partners in what first appears to be a pure business deal. Their meeting will change both Lila and Ray forever.

Melissa Leo, one of our best character actress, shines in this sad story. Ms. Leo has given great performances during her career, but she outdoes herself with her take of a desperate woman driven to her wits' end by a situation bigger than what she thought it would be. Same can be said of Misty Upham's portrayal of Lila. A poor Mohawk woman that has been cheated out of what she loved most, she finds herself helpless. Both Ms. Leo and Ms. Upham are perfection under Ms. Hunt's guidance.

Judging by this auspicious debut, one can only hope for more of this talented young director, Courtney Hunt.

Illegal Immigrants Coming In From The North, Too – 'Frozen River' Review

[Anonymous_Maxine · 9/10 · 16 February 2009]

Frozen River has all the makings of a sleeper hit. It has an interesting location presented so clearly you can almost feel the snow leaking into the tips of your shoes, it has characters with unique and interesting personalities that are wonderfully performed and never unrealistic for a split second, and it has a story that is at once completely believable, perfectly paced, and has the feel of real life. That last is the most difficult thing to achieve in the movie, and Frozen River does it better than the vast majority of the other Oscar nominees in any category.

But why is it nominated for Best Original Screenplay? Granted, the story is good and well- presented and performed, but the screen writing itself has a few mistakes that are so childish and careless that I would more expect to see them in a junior high school book report.

The movie starts with a close-up of a woman's face, and it's full of sadness and suffering and betrays a life full of long, hard years. Then the camera pulls back and reveals the movie's setting and soon the characters. It presents a portrait of the typical lower-class American family. A teenage son and a –year-old son being raised by a mother working at the Yankee Dollar store with no father figure in the house. He's on a business trip/has abandoned them, and he's taken the money they needed to buy the double-wide. All we know about him is that he has a gambling problem and probably took off on a bus to Atlantic City.

Melissa Leo gives the best and most important performance in the film. She's Ray Eddy, the "single" mother badly struggling to raise her two children essentially on her own, now that the father has recently disappeared with their savings. Her 15-year-old son is wise beyond his years. He wants to quit school and get a job, believing – probably correctly - that he can earn enough money to help solve their desperate financial problems. But Ray refuses, insisting that he stay in school. The extent of the family's dire financial situation shows how significant it is that she never even considers allowing him to quit school to go to work.

The movie takes place on the border between the U.S. and Canada, at an unknown border- crossing area near an Indian reservation that a few Mohawks have been using as a spot to bring illegals into the country. Ray one day sees her car being driven by someone she doesn't know and pursues her, ultimately getting herself tangled up in a dangerous smuggling operation.

Ray is an honest woman. She's honest and hard-working and law-abiding, the kind of person that most of us can relate to pretty easily. We've all had financial troubles at some point in our lives, and when Ray gets that first few hundred dollars for bringing in some illegal immigrants, it's easier to feel her relief than it is to worry about anything that might result from illegal immigration. We are relieved almost as if the money were solving our own problems rather than someone in a movie. We don't want her to be caught for breaking the law, we want her to bring in a few more car-loads and get that trailer home for her and her son and daughter. This is a sign of outstanding characterization.

Unfortunately, the script is also peppered with foolish mistakes. At one point, Ray sets down two bowls of microwave popcorn for her kids, and her son says indignantly, "I'm not eating this for dinner again." Not a minute later, he and the young daughter are rushed out the door to catch the morning school bus. Do they eat dinner before school or do they go to school after dinner? At another point Ray and Lila, her smuggling partner, are driving into town with a car full of incriminating evidence, and a state trooper pulls into the road behind them and turns on both his lights and his siren. The next scene shows Ray nervously asking Lila, "What if he pulls me over?"

What if? Does she not know what lights and a siren mean? How did this get into the final cut? There is also the smaller but probably more significant issue of the Chinese illegals who at first refuse to get into the car because a woman is driving it. It's not a problem for the story, just a simple but clear example of ignorance about the cultures displayed as illegal immigrants in the movie. There is absolutely no problem about woman drivers here in China. There are female taxi drivers all over this place, and they are generally much better and safer drivers than men.

The best thing that the movie does, however, is that it never once tells us the story, it shows us the story, which is much more difficult and much more effective. The performances by Melissa Leo and Misty Upham as Ray and Lila are so effective that nothing ever needs to be said to illustrate their relationship. Within minutes of their first screen time together, we get the feeling that we've known them each for a long time and are watching to see how they react to each other.

Never once is the movie about anything but personal financial need. It is not about illegal immigration or even smuggling, it just uses those things to illuminate the real meaning, and the setting provides the perfect backdrop to the story, both of which are cold and hard and unforgiving, but equally well-presented. I'm reminded of other similarly cold but brilliant films, like Fargo and Affliction. Recommended!

Great Drama

[Michael_Elliott · 24 February 2009]

Frozen River (2008)

**** (out of 4)

Melissa Loe plays the mother of two who has her husband leave her days before Christmas with the money they had been saving for a new double-wide trailer. Wanting to give her kids a new place to live she starts hauling illegal immigrants across a frozen river. This here is a rather unique film that takes a look at single mothers doing what they must in order to survive. I've read a few reviews that said the director pounds the message of the film over the viewers head or that the film tries too hard to show that being poor sucks but I have to disagree in some ways. Yes, the film does paint an ugly picture but this is why I enjoyed it so much. I think most movies would have had us caring 100% about our lead woman but that's not the case here. This is a rather ugly and dirty movie that doesn't paint any good pictures and for that reason alone this thing has my respect. I must be honest and say I'm happy that I hated Loe's character so much yet at the same time I wanted to see her get her wish of giving her children a new place to live. Director Hunt, who also wrote the screenplay, never pulls any punches nor does she try to make us feel sympathy for the lead woman. Yes, I think we're suppose to feel sorry for her but I respect the fact that she's not a very likable character from start to finish. I must admit that there were several moments where I wanted to hit her upside the head just because of her dumbness and the stupid things she said and did to her older son. I'm not sure how many people are going to feel this way but her character isn't one I liked at the start of the movie and my feelings didn't change by the end. That's something brave to do with a film that also wants you see that same character succeed in what she's doing. Misty Upham plays another single mother who gets involved with the smuggling and seeing these two women working together, even though they don't really care for one another, makes this a very interesting character study on so many levels. The two women give wonderful performances and are some of the most natural performances I've seen in a very long time. Leo perfectly fits into the role of this poor woman to the point where you can just see it in her eyes and smell it on her clothes. She doesn't hit a false note throughout the film and really hits a grand slam. Upham isn't getting much attention this Oscar-season but she too delivers a very strong performance. The film, rightfully, doesn't try to play sides on the morals of sneaking people into this country and instead just paints a rather ugly story of being poor and the links some will go to try and provide for their families. This isn't a movie too many people are going to watch but it's one of those independent films that really makes you pay attention to what hopefully leads to more films from the talented director.

Wrong Message

[sq8188-162-458059 · 4/10 · 23 May 2018]

Hard living in the reservation, becomes even more ungiving against the bitter cold and frozen north. While this film succeeds in painting that lifeless landscape, the people are as unsympathetic toward each other as well. Ray is hard-edged as a 50 something white woman whose no-good gambling husband finally left for good, leaving her, a small child and an angry 15 year old teen. More than her match is Lila, who wore the same dour expression throughout the movie. No one seems to like each other. Ok I get that, life is hard on the reservation. But these people dont seem to be helping themselves either. The biggest complaint comes when Ray (Melissa Leo) is caught smuggling two chinese women, asks the cop, who was the most sympathetic voice in this whole ordeal, how long would she be locked up. "Four years", he says, "unless you are on a watch list". She was relieved. Only 4 years ? Thats easy money for taking a small risk - it should be 10 years and $100,000 fine. This is hardly a deterrent. The director and writer seem single-focused on just one thing. That to portray poverty and hopelessness. But hardly offers a solution.