Customer Reviews

Frozen River [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Melissa Leo plays the character of Ray in this fantastic independent film. Married to a gambling addict who has run off shortly before Christmas, Ray is a single parent being hounded by creditors. All she has in the house for her two children to eat is Tang and some chips. She works at the 'Lucky Dollar' store and has been hoping for two years for a promotion that is not going to happen.

Melissa and her two children live in a single-wide trailer that is falling apart. Her dream is to get a double-wide. Circumstances lead her to meet and hook up with a young woman from the Mohawk Nation. Together, they engage in smuggling illegal aliens from Canada to the U.S. Ray plans to stop as soon as she has enough money for the double-wide. However,it looks like the police are on to her. Will she be able to make the last runs to get enough money?

Ray and her young friend begin their relationship as adversaries and as the movie progresses they begin to connect, each appreciating the other and developing trust and respect.

The movie shows the bleakness of the reservation and the adjoining town in upstate New York. The poverty is more like a third world nation than the U.S.

I loved the movie. Its understatement let the characters evolve through their actions in dire circumstances. We learn about them by what they do and how they respond to others. There are no special effects, just the beauty of the photography and the depth of character development. This movie is a gem which I highly recommend.

Veteran and extremely underused actress Melissa Leo delivers a powerful, tour-de-force performance as Ray, a mother just abandoned by her lowlife, gambler husband several days before Christmas in Northern New York state. It's cold, very cold; the kind of cold that even the tiniest hole to the outside world can turn any home into a fully functional freezer. This is experienced worse more than anyone by Lila (Misty Upham) early on in the movie after Ray discovers her stolen car in the hands of this young Mohawk girl. Both women have heartbreaking back stories that are revealed throughout the movie and both are in the same boat; their flat broke.

Ray needs to make the down payment on a doublewide trailer for she and her two sons. Lila has reasons too that I won't go into for it will spoil some of the more dramatic elements of the plot.

Lila has already been arrested for smuggling illegal aliens over the frozen Hudson River into America from Canada several times, but she knows there's money in it. When Ray hears of this she jumps in for some fast cash.

The point of this movie is not illegal immigration; it's not really even about relations between Native Americans and whites, though both are depicted. The overall tone of this film is survival and what people are willing to do to survive, to put food on the table and keep a roof over their families' head. Ray has been working part-time at the same dead-end job for over two years but is refused full-time work. Lila pays out money to senior citizens playing bingo at the local VFW. What gives this film even more depth is that these women have so many opportunities to steal money easily (Ray can take it out of the cash drawer and Lila could steal it from the half-blind Bingo players) but neither do. They are both hardworking people willing to risk, not only their lives, but their freedom to perform work that pays; Ray and Lila don't want handouts.

"Frozen River" can be seen as a drama, which it is; but it can also be viewed as a thriller (the last forty minutes or so are as suspenseful as any big-budget Hollywood blockbuster). However, it is ultimately a story of people, people with their back to the walls that are willing to do anything for some breathing room.

Supporting roles by Charlie McDermott (as Ray's oldest son), Mark Boone jr. (as a malevolent human trafficker) and Michael O'Keefe (as a nosy state trooper) are believable and only add to this strong film by Courtney Hunt in the best debut since Patty Jenkins with 2003's "Monster". Her solid directing from her original screenplay (and a miniscule million dollar budget) turns "Frozen River" into one of the best films of 2008 and giving Melissa Leo the chance to shine in the finest performance from an actress this year.

FROZEN RIVER is a gripping drama that features one of 2008's finest performances.

Like Bette Davis before her, Melissa Leo is an actress who puts craft over glamor. She's not afraid to let herself appear totally unattractive on the screen if that is what the role requires. She more than deserves every award she's received thus far.

In this film, written and directed by Courtney Hunt, Melissa plays a middle-age woman whose husband has just left her and their two sons. She's broke, lives in a broken-down mobile home in frigid upstate New York and works part-time at a local variety store. Her dream is to buy a double-wide mobile home, but hubby has gambled away the money for that.

Melissa's life changes when she meets a widowed Mohawk woman (Misty Upham) who survives by smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States from Canada. Seeing this as an opportunity to get her new mobile home, Melissa partners with the woman, but soon finds herself running from the law.

The DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment includes audio commentary by Hunt and producer Heather Rae.

© Michael B. Druxman

My sweetheart and I are usually so beat after a weeks work that our "Date Night" usually breaks down to holding hands while we put on a DVD. While I like a lot of different kinds of movies, my wife expects me to find amazing nuggets that she will like, that aren't sci-fi etc. Sometimes I get lucky.

I was perusing the idie films, and saw "Frozen River", and thought this might be another one. It is.

It is the moving story of two women who are without their husbands for very different reasons, fighting for their families in a world with few possibilities.

This like (another recent big budget film) "Changeling" is not sexy or entertaining, just a well acted moving story that will stick with you.

If you are looking for a moving drama the Indie movie "Frozen River" is just the ticket.

We found this DVD in the cheapie pile at Walmart and were attracted by its Sundance prize and its locale-an area where we once worked after college. We were very impressed by the film. It captured the despair of a mother trying to raise two sons after her husband gambled away the family's small savings and abandoned them. Add to that an Indian woman in trouble with her tribe and her in-laws who have her baby. The story of the two women and their attempt to solve their problems in any way they can has the ring of gritty reality. It was a real treat in these days of blood and guts, sci-fi, and cartoonish adventures.

I do not have the blu ray yet, but Melissa Leo plays her career-defining role in this movie, her acting is on a much higher plateau than the budget used to make this movie would suggest. I was so happy to see that she has been nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for this movie. She certainly deserves it! You're gonna love it!

I saw a pre screening of this gem,and it has set the bar for moviemaking, for me. A new director,It places you in the present with these characters,you never feel like you are watching a movie,so much as experiencing these people's lives.Put it at the top of your list. It belongs there.

Other reviewers have given the plot, so I won't repeat it.

Nothing in this movie is predictable. What you suspect will happen, doesn't. What you don't expect to happen, does. Every character is believable. Each one evokes a different emotion from the viewer. Just by standing there and saying nothing, the cop sends shivers up your spine. From the main characters down to the bit players, each one plays his and her part with an uncanny excellence. I cared about all of them. The casting of this movie couldn't have been better.

This movie is a prime example of the desperate measures decent people will take when things turn bad and all hope for a better future is gone. From the smugglers to the smuggled, they all have something to gain and something to lose, yet the hope for a better life overrides their fear as well as their senses.

You can watch this movie with your older children. There are no sex scenes, no violence. If there was any swearing I don't remember it.

I can't recommend it enough.

It's hard to believe that this film is a first-time effort from writer/director Courtney Hunt. Though small in budget, it's a small gem. Hunt's writing had us on the edge of our seats throughout the film. At one point, you're convinced that tragedy lurks just around the corner for a number of the protagonists. And - while the outcome still has elements of bleakness and personal loss - real tragedies are narrowly averted. You're left with the green sprouts of a slightly better future that will come to fulfillment four months down the road.

Leads Melissa Leo, Misty Upham and Charlie McDermott play great roles here. Ms. Leo isn't afraid to look haggard and beaten-down by life. Her performance in 21 Grams stands deeply entrenched in my memory for the same reason. For Frozen River, she deserved that Oscar nomination and her Independent Spirit win.

McDermott's strong performance is also worthy of note: he plays his mid-teen 'T.J.' as fully aware of the desperation of his family's life; yet he strives mightily to protect the innocence and happiness of his little brother's existence. That difference in attitude between older and younger brother is but one of many ways that reveals the intelligence of Courtney Hunt's sublime script and direction.

A great indie movie for the discriminating film fan's collection. It wasn't a box-office smash, but it deserves the successful afterlife of the classic on DVD because it stays with you long after it's over. To me, low budget does not translate into less worthy; in fact, it can mean much more, like loaded with the truth and integrity that the gimmicky blockbusters rarely produce. So it is with Frozen River.

Melissa Leo is simply great as Ray, a trailer-park denizen and deserted mother of two trying to improve her impoverished circumstances by moonlighting as a smuggler of illegal immigrants traveling via Canada into the U.S. The perilous route forms in winter, when the St. Lawrence River becomes icebound where it bisects the trans-border Mohawk reservation near Massena NY. Just for her first extreme closeup alone -- a lingering upward pan that reveals a tense, chain-smoking, old-too-soon woman wondering how she'll get through today -- Ms. Leo should have been given the Oscar. (She was nominated for Best Lead Performance.) There are no visible "uglifying" makeup tricks or prosthetics; every pore and wrinkle on Leo's 40-something face and body is there to see. Thus, we also see Ray's badly bruised heart cowering behind her street-smart exterior and gritty determination: all of which refuse to let her give up, give out or give in. Ray has a dream -- to move her family up into a brand-new doublewide -- and she's going to make it happen, no matter what.

It's the film's realism that makes it so memorable. Having visited the upper St. Lawrence region regularly in my youth, I can vouch for the area's awesome natural beauty, sub-zero winters, widespread poverty (no doubt exacerbated by recent paper mill and Alcoa plant closures), underground economy and subtle racism that appears in this movie. Whether by limited budget or ingenious design, the producers, writer and director of Frozen River have mixed these important story elements in with great on-location settings and some telling cinematic detail. This includes the team's choices for the supporting roles, most of which went to local actors and non-professionals. All these factors help reveal the hardscrabble lives lead by Ray and her reluctant smuggling partner, Lila (the remarkable Misty Upham, who gained 30 pounds and cut her hair to play the taciturn widowed Mohawk mother), and why they would choose such a dangerous occupation to escape from them. Just goes to show why Hollywood movies made by committee rarely get this kind of film right.

Technically, the DVD's sole embellishment features an above-average commentary by writer-director Courtney Hunt and co-producer Heather Ray. Unlike (too) many rambling or self-promoting star turns on such tracks, their dialogue is self-effacing, targeted, full of interesting detail and revealing of how indie films like this get made. Thank God, they do.