Frozen River (2008)

Truly Dreadful Film

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

"What if a trooper stops us? -They're not gonna stop you, you're white."Frozen River made a lot of noise in 2008 after debuting in the Sundance Film Festival and winning the Grand Jury Prize. It went on to win many other awards and even received two Academy Award nominations for best lead performance from Melissa Leo and for original screenplay written by Courtney Hunt who also directed this grim indie film. It is an impressive debut film considering the subject matter usually doesn't attract much attention. The story centers on a mother who's left with the task of raising her two children on her own after her husband has abandoned them ten days before Christmas. He took off with the money that her wife had been saving. It takes place in Massena, New York, near the Canadian border where a Mohawk reservation exists. She meets a Mohawk named Lila and circumstances lead her to smuggle illegal immigrants across a frozen river in order to sustain her family. Frozen River is a character study of a hard willed woman who is determined to do what it takes to provide for her children. It can be a challenging watch for the audience, but Melissa Leo's authentic performance makes it an engaging one. There are very few films that center around strong female characters, and Courtney Hunt has directed and written a powerful one. This film reminds me a lot of Winter Bone (which came out a couple of years later) which also benefited from a strong female performance. It is a tale of endurance and focuses on the American underclass that very seldom is portrayed on film in an authentic manner. I enjoyed this film so much that I'm actually looking forward to Hunt's next film (The Whole Truth) which will be released this year. Melissa Leo deservedly received an Oscar nod for her performance and I think this was the perfect role for her. She has this authentic look and is credible as a single mother who is willing to do what it takes to get out of her current situation. Her chemistry with Misty Upham is what makes this film standout. Upham is also given a strong female character to play and she delivers a strong performance. She and Leo's character both are going through difficult moments in their lives struggling with poverty. They are matched together by the circumstances they are facing despite their differences and that relationship is the heart of the film. The kids played by Charlie McDermott and James Reilly are both solid, but the female characters are the heart and soul of this film. The scenery also plays a huge role in this film considering the harsh and freezing conditions are transmitted to the characters in the story. They struggle and battle with the adversities presented in their lives with fearless strength. It is a small gritty indie drama that is worth checking out, especially if you were a fan of Winter's Bone.

A down on her luck mother of two (played to perfection by Melissa Leo) living in upstate New York, goes in search of her deadbeat husband and meets a native Indian woman (played eloquently by Misty Upham) who has just experienced a personal tragedy in possession of her husband's car. Believing he is having an affair she confronts the mysterious woman and after a brief altercation Lila (the Indian woman) gives up the vehicle then reveals a get rich quick scheme to the destitute mother as she attempts to tow her husband's vehicle back home. Protected by the confines of the Mohawk reservation which she belongs, Lila manages to avoid the law as she carries out her dangerous 'get rich quick' missions and Ray (Leo) unwillingly accepts her own "being White & invisible" camouflage to save her family from poverty and both women embark on crazy adventures together crossing the borders of the US and Canada via an unguarded frozen river.

"Frozen River" is an example of what great indie film making is all about.Instead of special effects and outrageous plot twists, we are shown real people caught up in some of the significant issues of life.First let me say that the acting by Melissa Leo, and especially Misty Upham is superb. Both characters grow in stature as the film progresses; what seem to be clichés at the start become powerful archetypes. The direction and cinematography cannot be faulted anywhere. Just well done all the way, without drawing special attention to itself. They let the story take preeminence. "Frozen River" will challenge your way of seeing cultures, borders, and family. It is the type of movie that stays with you. Don't miss it.

Frozen River unfolds on the cold, biting and rather inhospitable New York State Canadian-American border; a part of the continent in which huge trucks carrying their huge hauls rumble on through past toll booths and under barriers amidst the snow and ice which surrounds the locale for as far as the eye can see; the sort of place neon signs hang, limply, and unlit during the day while homes that look as if they've had little in the way of residency stand idly to the sides of roads. The film, a debut from Tenesse born writer/director Courtney Hunt, is a really pleasing, engrossing little American indie about adults in adult situations facing adult scenarios and dealing with them methodically, maturely and, above all, realistically - we are a long way from the snow-set mainstream posing of something such as Juno and the-like, a film which could only pretend to tackle a rather serious contemporary issue and trivialise such material with a bevy of brash, annoying and wholly unrealistic characters inhabiting a film more interested in entertaining you with its gift of the gab. Indeed, we are mercifully a long way from films such as Secretary and The Squid and the Whale and wholly indebted to Hunt for dragging us away from such films and back to this.We begin on a woman with an agonised expression; she is sitting alone in the coldness of the world she inhabits up against, it seems, not only the climate of her dwelling but the cold makeup of human nature. She smokes; she looks disenchanted; she is Ray Eddy and is played by Melissa Leo. Ray's world is one in which she has little in the way of money. What she dos have is a good-for-nothing gambler of a husband whom is long-gone; two, young sons; a trailer home hanging in the balance on account of the local council with their fees they demand for it and the prospect of not being able to buy a little-'un the diecast set of toy cars they so desperately want for Christmas. The Eddy family are one very much on the edge; a later altercation with a descendant of the Native American's whose land centuries ago this once was, named Lila Littlewolf (Upham), sees Ray put a bullet square into the entrance door to her trailer home, this following some aggravation – we get the feeling six months ago, it may very well have been a warning shot into the air but that sense of her being well past that point of 'warning' has arrived, that here and now at this new level of agitation is the plateau upon which she now resides.The film will come to follow these two and their uneasy alliance, an element to any film which when executed with the sort of bravado and effectiveness as is rather demonstrated here, can make for some fascinating viewing. Lila, a mere bingo house worker patrolling the floors and the player's little-to-no bingo playing activity, the film coming to reveal lives an equally dishevelled lifestyle in rather humble shack-like conditions; somebody whom is additionally devoid of a husband but very much with that out-casted, hermit-like existence similar to that of Ray. Their duty, as perpetrated by some local indigenous people whom Lila knows, is to smuggle people across the aforementioned border with what the instigators claim is within legality but was always ambiguous in its criminality, for large amounts of money; the zone through which they must journey is the titular frozen river, a stretch of icy nothingness doubling up as a moral grey zone neatly capturing the nature of Ray and Lila's activities; a zone devoid of most things and set well away from the confines of whatever passes for civilisation. Their first job, to transport an apparently untrustworthy young foreign man from place to place, sees Ray handed the gentleman's shoes before they all drive off on account it will "stop him from running away", in what is a neat, authentic touch systematically doing lots whilst doing very little.The film itself draws us into proceedings even more; the overbearing item to proceedings, or what's at stake, the fact this down-and-out family have the loss of their home on the line, something which Ray's husband practically gave away on account of his gambling habit. The film additionally makes use of Ray's infant son and his desperate pleas for a set of small, metallic cars with which he can play; Frozen River utilising such a notion or potential event without really exploiting such a child-like and innocent desire whilst keeping us wholly aware that if its lead does indeed get away with what it is she's doing, these two realities will be able to come to fruition. The film manages to have us will the lead on without ever really endorsing any criminal activity, instead, and by placing its characters into some rather harrowing situations born out of Ray's decision to engage in people trafficking, the film builds up enough of an unglamorous edge to proceedings to see it by. The culmination, of which, is an embittered and remarkably well played drama going on to cover some territory in the deftest and most capable of manners.