Winter of Frozen Dreams

Thora Birch made a vivid impression with her talent, her carefully flat affect and her poetic appearance in "American Beauty". Now, in "Winter of Frozen Dreams", all three qualities are back on display. Her ghostly complexion haunts the film, in which she is the centerpiece femme fatale.

The film, set in a small town in mid-winter, has an unusually strong sense of colour and a very successful handling of visuals overall. Both the anti-heroine and the landscape from which she emerges are carefully pictured and scorchingly cold.

Keith Carradine wins out with dialogue, as the jaded detective about to retire. His character follows the trail of Thora Birch with one wry remark, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, after another.

As a portrait of a brilliant psychopath, the film kept me rooted to the spot as I studied Birch's careful depiction.