Frozen River
Script, cinematography and stellar performances make Courtney Hunt’s low-budget indie, Frozen River, an absolute winner. Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is trapped in poverty in frozen up-state New York. She lives in a tinny trailer with her sons TJ (Charlie McDermott) and Ricky (James Reilly) and barely scrapes out a living working in a dollar store. The boys’ father, Troy, who we never see, but who has a palpable presence in the story, has gambled away the family’s savings and fled the scene.
They’re down to popcorn and Tang in the larder when Ray goes to the bingo hall looking for her missing husband and encounters Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a glum Mohawk solo mother who smuggles illegal immigrants into the US from Canada.
The frozen St Lawrence River forms part of the border and the state police have no jurisdiction in the Mohawk reservation beside it, so anyone willing to drive on the frozen river and deal with the very shady characters on the other side can make good money. Lila’s husband has died because he tried to drive on the river when it wasn’t quite frozen. As a result, their baby son has been taken by her in-laws and Lila is desperate to put together enough money to get him back and make a life for them both.
Ray’s equally desperate state – her wide-screen TV is about to be repossessed and she is in danger of losing her deposit on a new double-wide trailer – impels her into a very uneasy alliance with Lila, who says Ray’s whiteness gives the smuggling operation some safety.
Frozen River explores poverty, motherhood, hope, race relations and what it means (and what it costs) to do the right thing. It was shot on a tiny budget in 24 days in Plattsburgh, New York, using real people as extras and stunningly real locations. The cold seeped into the film and into this reviewer (even though he was in the warm-as-toast Village Theatre).
This is Courtney Hunt’s directorial debut and she is clearly someone to watch out for. Her attention to detail and her thoughtful use of the camera impressed other Village Theatre patrons and this reviewer. The green Dodge Spirit, Ray’s tattoos, the decrepit merry-go-round in the front yard, the bingo hall that is the hub of the community and the previously-mentioned popcorn and Tang all feel just right. There is respectful intelligence and restraint in the way the story is told and in the actors’ performances too.
Melissa Leo was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar on the basis of her performance in Frozen River, and that level of recognition was richly deserved. Charlie McDermott, as the 15-year-old TJ, is wonderful too, bringing an authentic, sweet fragility to the role that could so easily have been realised with less complex flavours of anger and bravado.
Frozen River drew me in and engaged me and held me, but I can’t explain it in as graphic terms as Quentin Tarantino did. In presenting Hunt with the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Tarantino told the audience that the film “ took my breath away and then somewhere around the last hour, it put my heart in a vice and proceeded to twist that vice until the last frame.”
This is film that is worth leaving the warmth of your home to see. It says something about the power of film that a work as visually bleak and emotionally gritty as this could be just the thing to warm the cockles of your heart. Don’t miss it.
Neil Wilson
FROZEN RIVER (M) (FINAL). The next and final screening at the Village Theatre, Sunday 31 May at 4.30pm.
