A low-budget triumph for director Courtney Hunt that won the grand jury prize at Sundance, “Frozen River” is a thriller set in upstate New York anchored by an unforgettable performance by veteran character actress Melissa Leo.
You can practically feel the cold permeating the crumbling trailer that single mother Ray shares with her 15-year-old son, T.J. (Charlie McDermott), and his younger brother, Ricky (James Reilly), a couple of days before Christmas.
Ray’s gambler husband has run off with the final payment for a new double-wide trailer – and her part-time job at the Yankee Dollar Store isn’t going to leave a whole lot under the tree.
When a young Mohawk woman named Lila (Misty Upham) makes off with her car, Ray pursues Lila to her own, even tinier trailer. Shots are fired.
The casually racist Ray eventually finds herself reluctantly in business with the deeply suspicious Lila, who needs money herself to get her baby back.
Ray’s car is ideal for smuggling aliens from Canada into the US by driving across the frozen St. Lawrence River.
At first their cargo is Chinese, with whom Ray has no problems. But when she has to pack Pakistanis into the trunk, Ray fears the bag they’ve tossed into her back seat contains weapons and tosses it onto the ice.
She’s couldn’t be more wrong, as we see in a truly chilling sequence.
Meanwhile, the unsupervised T.J. is getting involved with a credit-card scam and other potentially dangerous activities.
Lila and Ray face no shortage of danger themselves from their associates, and the state troopers on the US side (including one played by Michael O’Keefe) are starting to wonder about Ray’s frequent trips to the Mohawk reservation.
There is no shortage of indie movies about economically challenged women. This one is different, in that the women actually do something besides just talk about it.
The scenes of the late-night runs across the snowy, frozen river – filmed on a shoestring under difficult circumstances – are haunting, especially a slow-speed chase on the perilous ice.
While Upham more than holds her own as the tough but vulnerable Lila, “Frozen River” belongs to the commanding Leo, an unglamorous actress of a certain age perhaps best known for playing a tough cop on “Law & Order.”
Leo deserved an Oscar nomination for her gritty performance as Benecio del Toro’s wife in “21 Grams” – here’s hoping she’ll get one this time.
FROZEN RIVER
Viva Leo!
Running time: 97 minutes. Rated R (profanity). At the Lincoln Plaza and the Angelika.