Life on thin ice

Frozen River
Review by Nathan Weinbender

The first time we see Ray, she is sitting in her car smoking a cigarette. She’s in the passenger-side seat with the door open, her feet in the snow, wearing a bathrobe and slippers. Her hands are shaking. It is in extreme close-up: Her face fills the screen, wearing an expression of heartbreak and neglect, and we can see the deep lines in her face and the dirt underneath her fingernails, and she silently begins to cry.

It is a powerful opening moment, and “Frozen River” goes on from there to become a story of surprising depth and humanity.

Ray, played by veteran character actress Melissa Leo, lives in New York near the U.S.-Canada border. Her husband has just walked out on her, she has two young sons, she’s desperately trying to make ends meet working part-time at the dollar store. She is saving up to buy a new double-wide trailer home, one that’s insulated so the pipes don’t freeze in the winter, but when they deliver it on a big flatbed truck, she doesn’t have the down payment. She can’t afford food, either, serving her kids microwave popcorn and orange Tang for dinner.

One day, as she’s driving past a bingo hall on the Mohawk Indian reservation, she sees her husband’s car in the parking lot. She sees a young Native American woman get into the car, and Ray follows her to a tiny trailer in the middle of the woods. The woman’s name is Lila (Misty Upham), and she says she found the car abandoned with the keys still in the ignition. “The guy driving it got on a bus,” she says—to Buffalo, most likely, or Atlantic City.

Lila wants to buy Ray’s husband's car. Ray says no; she needs it. Lila persists, saying she’ll give Ray twice what the car is worth. It has a push-button trunk, which helps her, Ray soon discovers, in smuggling illegal immigrants across the Canadian border, traversing an iced-over river tucked away on the reservation. The job pays $1200 a run, and when Ray finds herself being held at gunpoint, driving over the river with illegals in her trunk, she decides that the money will help her get her life back in order.

Ray’s relationship with Lila burgeons in unexpected places. Lila doesn’t trust white people, but she learns that police aren’t as likely to stop a Caucasian. Ray doesn’t trust Lila, either, until she learns that Lila is also a mother, an infant son whom she is not allowed to see, and has also been abandoned by the baby’s father. Are they friends? No. Business associates? Not really. They have found themselves partnered out of necessity—they soon discover that neither can survive without the other.

“Frozen River” marks the debut of Courtney Hunt, and she has created characters that seem remarkably real. She finds poignancy in the minutiae of everyday life—there’s a touching moment when Ray, exasperated, re-records her voicemail greeting over and over again, as though she doesn’t believe that the hollow, shaky voice on the line is her own.

There are other terrific scenes that take on a quiet, moving humility, as when Lila sits in a tree, watching her son through her mother-in-law’s window. And when Ray’s fifteen-year-old son (Charlie McDermott) deals with the fact that his little brother has no presents under the Christmas tree.

The performances here are remarkable. Melissa Leo, who has worked on TV and in low-budget films since the ‘80s, is a revelation. She is tenacious and resourceful, yet fragile at the same time, and Leo conveys so much with her face that we can understand where she’s coming from just by looking at her.

Misty Upham, in her first starring role, isn’t quite as assured as Leo, but she certainly holds her own, and her performance feels genuine. In a particularly tender moment, she sees her son in a fast-food restaurant, and she handles the scene just perfectly.

Made for just $500,000 and with a cast predominately made up of amateurs, Hunt has made a truly memorable first picture. “Frozen River” is a great example of no-frills independent filmmaking—had it boasted bigger stars or a larger budget, the movie probably would have lost its intimacy and its sense of realism.

It is a film about desolation and regret, and the stark, wintry landscapes and sparse dialogue reflect that. But the movie never wallows in the sadness or sorry dispositions of its characters, and it ends on a note that, although far from sunny, is more or less hopeful.

“Frozen River,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is now playing in limited release.

Grade: A-

Directed and written by Courtney Hunt. Starring Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott and Michael O’Keefe. R; 97m.