User reviews

The town where Frozen River takes place is Massena, New York, a few miles from the Canadian border in the middle of a Mohawk reservation, and in the winter it's every bit as cold and grey as the film depicts. This is one of those films that depicts a slice of life that most of us aren't privy too and it seems to know its subject inside and out.

Frozen River is independent film-making at its best, both vital and timely. Writer/Director Courtney Hunt shows how otherwise law abiding people can be driven to do some shady things when there are no other options. While there may still be a great divide between Natives and non-Natives, the film depicts how economic hardship has no boundaries and in fact unites us. As Lila and Ray make those dangerous trips across the border with state troopers lurking all around them, Hunt pays considerable attention to the small details of human smuggling, and the result is a constant state of dread as if anything can go awry at any time. Leo is absolutely brilliant as Ray, and Upham (raised in Seattle) is a pure revelation as Lila. Frozen River shines a light on a dark corner of our nation, one that is an unfortunate result of a useless immigration policy and a failing economy.

Life ain't easy for Ray. She may have had it good, but now she's got it rough. Two kids. Gambling runaway husband. Working at the Yankee Dollar. On the icy brink of the unforgiving upstate New York wilderness. Living in a trailer. The best thing she can even think of is a bigger trailer. Bottles on bottles of bubble bath she may never open hold the promise of better days that may never break. That's how bad it is. Along comes Lila. In many ways, she has it even worse than Ray: living in an even tinier trailer, estranged from her family, bad eyes, out of work. But she is also a small-time player in the well-oiled trafficking industry, bringing aliens into the US from Canada. Desperate for a little extra cash to buy that bigger trailer, Ray gets involved. At first sight, writer-director Courtney Hunt's debut is as depressing as they come. But beneath rough surfaces, there is also hope. In fact, the many acts of love and kindness are all the more surprising given how hard life is on these people. Just when you think they hit rock bottom, a bona fide miracle comes their way. Says Lila: "That wasn't me. That was the hand of the creator." It may be a broken Halleluja, but it's a Halleluja all the same. - Fine performances all around. Sundance and Hamburg Film Festival winner.

Courtney Hunt's début feature, "Frozen River", winner of this year's Sundance's Grand Jury Prize, is as tense as a great thriller should be, and also a heartfelt, poignant drama.

Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) was just abandoned by her druggie husband, having to take care of their two kids and pay for their house alone (otherwise, they'll be evicted). With her minimum wage job at a local store, Ray can't make enough money, but chance will introduce her to a young Mohawk, Lila (Misty Upham), who smuggles illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River (between New York State and Québec), and both will be forced to risk a lot in order to get the money they need.

Hunt's writing/directing is secure and reveals a very promising talent, but the film's major strength is the extraordinary performances of the lead actresses, in particular Melissa Leo ("21 Grams", "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"), magnificent character actress turned lead. Totally deglamourized, her screen presence is real, visceral, almost organic. A flawless performance in a great film, that is at once sad, suspenseful and hopeful. It's not every movie that makes you feel for and really care for its characters, but "Frozen River" is one of those rare gems. 10/10.

Reminded me Ridley Scott's Thelma&Louise(1991), this film debut of director and writer Courtney Hunt delivers us a compulsory participation of the two opposite characters. Melissa Leo and Misty Upham perform two innocent and mature women driven into the crime world after desperation.

Frozen River carries a vital independent spirit that even though the value of contents of the film is so unassuming, it brings in both sentimental and intellectual prestige. Directing, editing and storytelling are so plain. Cinematography, lights and sound work, score are out-of-service. There is absolutely no cinematic aspect but the theme. Since it's an independent production we primarily come across to a thorough presentation of this theme. It has been worked up so effectively and is as plausible as a documentary.

A great commitment and well-created atmosphere by Courtney Hunt. All actors have done a good job. Might feel boring if not seen for personal view.

How extraordinary to find a forty-something actress you've never seen or heard about before and being blown away by her. Her name is Melissa Leo and I believe she is here to stay. She gives the most powerful performance I've seen all year. She managed to slip into my subconscious and I find myself thinking about her (about her character) as I do someone I truly care about. That in itself is a major achievement. A first time director, Courtney Hunt, gives this character and this actress a remarkable space to breath and grow. The gelid landscape envelopes the desolate story but there is a human warmth devoid of sentimentality that makes "Frozen River" a welcome rarity. Moving, suspenseful, not to be missed.

Frozen River never even gets close to something of a positive tone. The movie is about a mother of two having her husband abandon them on 10 days before Christmas. To make matters worse the family is in dire straits needing money. As a result Melissa Leo, who plays the mother, begins to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border to make money.

Melissa Leo's performance in this movie is very good but hard to watch. The movie is tough and shows poverty in American and in Indian reservations continuously. Her performance showed the desperation of a single mother and the price she will pay to get what she needs.

The writing and directing of the movie was executed very well but I couldn't help but just have a bad feeling after the movie. I'm fine with negative movie but there seemed to be almost no hope for anyone in this film. Some stretches were of the film were dragging on but still a good film. If your in the mood watch this movie.

I caught a viewing of this tonight at the fantastic Traverse City Film Festival. The film was really fantastic. It is an indie flick very reminiscent of David Gordon Green's work (George Washington, All the Real Girls, etc) in pacing, cinematography, and the depth of character the director is able to elicit with profound minimalism. The plot centers around a Mohawk coyote who smuggles illegals across the St. Lawrence in the winter by driving back and forth between the Canadian and US segments of the Mohawk Reservation. The Mohawk are one of the few tribes that issue their own passports and directly challenge federal authority to regulate their border. Because the reservation covers areas in both nations there isn't much either side can do. For the Mohawk, sovereignty has real meaning, and they protect it fiercely.

The main character (aside from the Mohawk woman) is a white woman living in the area who's husband is a degenerate gambler and has taken off with the money she had saved to get them a new modular home. We never meet him, but nevertheless are given a good portrait of his and the family's struggles with his addiction. She needs $4k fast, stumbles into this smuggling business quite unexpectedly and decides its her only hope to avoid homelessness for herself and two kids. It's suspenseful, introspective, and the acting is top notch by everyone. I also loved how it provided a glimpse into one part of Indian Country few people even know exists, and treats the Indians as people rather than victims or otherwise attempts to cajole the audience into feeling something for them. They are just people. Just like us.

Highly recommended.

In Massena, New York, nearby a Mohawk Reservation and the Canadian border, the middle-aged Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is left by her husband a couple of days before Christmas. Her husband is a gambler and stole the family savings and the car, driving to an unknown destination and leaving Ray alone and without money to raise her two sons. When she sees the Mohawk Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham) driving her car, she follows the woman up to her trailer to retrieve the car. Lila lures her telling that she has a buyer for the vehicle, but she actually wants to use the large trunk to smuggler illegal immigrants from Canada into the United States through a frozen river in the Mohawk Reservation. Ray unsuccessfully tries to convince her boss to promote her in her part time job; without any alternative to make honest money, Ray decides to associate to Lila to raise enough money to pay for her dream house and do not lose her down payment.

"Frozen River" is an overrated little movie with a realistic and depressing story of two women that smuggle people to raise money to support their families. Melissa Leo has a stunning performance in the role of a desperate mother that is going to lose the house she has dreamed to raise her sons after her addicted husband stealing the family savings. Unfortunately the plot is short and for viewers that live in Third World countries, the drama is Ray is original only in the environment. Her financial situation does not justify the smuggling and is equivalent (or worse) than poor people acting as mules transporting drugs for example. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Rio Congelado" ("Frozen River")

I had heard that this film was something of a runaway hit at Cannes last year. After seeing it, I can see why. 'Frozen River' is a grim little tale of a middle aged woman (Melissa Leo)who's good for nothing, substance abusing,gambler husband has left her & their two sons for points unknown (only after usurping all of the money from the bank--and this,just a week before Christmas). Rae (Leo)has to earn some money soon, or lose their trailer home. She resorts to smuggling illegal aliens (with the assistance of an Indian woman who dislikes whites)over the boarder,from Canada to the U.S., via the local Indian reservation. Toss in elements of a cynical teen aged son,and other similar elements,and you have yourself a powerful piece of drama that although somewhat bleak,manages to draw you in to the plight of people who want to fit in, but are never the less, not excepted,due to racial issues. Well worth seeking out. The film has been slapped an R-rating by the MPAA, due to some course language.

In this "acclaimed Sundance drama," first-time director Courtney Hunt explores the situation of a desperate white American family living near the border between New York and Quebec. A Mohawk reservation overlaps the border in a sort of free zone. Driving over the frozen water of the title allows Ray Eddy (veteran actress Melissa Leo) temporarily to earn quick money by smuggling illegals into the US with the grudging assistance of a young Mohawk woman called Lila (Misty Upham), who's done it before. Ray's husband is a gambling addict who's gone missing right before Christmas leaving Ray to make balloon payments on a dreamed of three-bedroom "double wide" trailer home and a rent-to-own flat-screen TV. She's left alone with two sons, five and fifteen, with Christmas days off. On her part-time job at The Yankee Dollar, she's not going to make it. The dice are not turning up right for the Eddys.

A feeling of doom pervades 'Frozen River' from the opening tight closeup of Leo's deeply lined face as she sucks on a cigarette and quietly weeps. Things are so bad, the regular fare in the house is popcorn and Tang. Ricky (James Reilly) is a small boy who needs to be watched. He wants some violent video game for Christmas. The remaining male in charge is Ricky's photogenic fifteen-year-old brother T.J. (Charlie McDermott, whose first appearance was in Shyamalan's The Village). T.J. sees through mom's promises that all will be well and staunchly refuses to eat another popcorn-Tang dinner.

Ray's visit to the local bingo hall in search of her lost husband leads her to spot that Lila is driving his car, which he's abandoned. She follows Lila to the "res" to confront her and one thing leads to another. Inexplicably and not particularly in character, Ray pulls out a pistol and shoots it to get Lila's attention.

This is how it goes more or less from then on. There is a certain compulsive watchability to Hunt's downbeat tale in the way Ray must commit one desperate act after another in her misguided effort to avoid the worst Christmas ever. But this very intensity prevents the film from being allowed to breathe--to grant its characters a moment of reflection, to grant us in the audience a chance to get the feel of the locations. A cup of tea--or a glass of Tang--shared between the two women; anything to let us know them better. Instead many little plot details are slipped in, sometimes inconsistently and unconvincingly, complicating things without deepening them. And anybody with minimal perspective would see that this story is rigged, and often carelessly so.

The smuggling runs that constitute the film's claim to "thriller" status are clumsy, wordless affairs. A couple of Chinese men and then a couple of Chinese women are loaded into the trunk and money passed into the car and laboriously counted. For some reason Lila, whose vision is poor, has no glasses, so Ray has to do the counting as well as drive. A Pakistani couple get the same treatment and a hair-raising, and ultimately highly dubious, episode involves their backpack, which Ray tosses into the snow instead of bringing it along. As an example of the shaky writing, Ray expresses complete ignorance of Pakistan yet immediately assumes the couple are terrorists and their bag loaded with explosives or poisons. T.J. too gets into trouble, conning a lady, apparently Indian, into giving him her credit card number over the phone. How do the res police trace this back to him later? Another fudged detail. 'Frozen River' needs a lot of edits and more time spent on developing the sense of place. Despite the ostensible location this has the feel of a generic miserabilist weepy.

Contrast this with Lance Hammer's terrific recent film 'Ballast,' a drama about poor black people in the Mississippi Delta. 'Ballast's' starting points closely resemble 'Frozen River's:' grim poverty, a stark rural setting, family conflict, a missing father, a teenage boy led astray partly because of the mother's inability to cope through a job much like Ray's in 'Frozen River'. But Hammer wisely kept it simple, including a shooting early on not for drama so much as to start things off, thereafter mixing the direness with the everyday, letting the characters emerge as individuals. Religiously pursuing regional flavor, Hammer drew all his actors from the area. He listened to the voices, and created an outstanding sound design. He allowed the story to move in a positive direction. He also let scenes unfold at their own pace, soaking up the atmosphere and allowing the people to seem authentic. Ballast's action is just as intense, but its characters work with what they've got instead of pursuing illegal fantasies. There's never a detail that feels wrong. In 'Frozen River,' many do, some are factually inaccurate, and scenes are awkward.. Hunt's film revels in desperate details, yet has a soft, inconclusive ending. If your people are doomed, let the doom come! Despite the awards, Hunt has a lot to learn.

For a first time director, a superb job, The general theme is single mothers fighting for their very life. Living on next to nothing,trying to raise their children with almost no resources but their own courage. They are at the very edge of society living in forbidding land of ice snow and frozen lakes and rivers. Both Melissa Leo and the native American woman must make terrible choices in order to live. Despite what the main stream critics have said, the picture is photographed wonderfully and there are no cheap props other indications of cheap film. The actors are fabulous and the characters are interesting, true to life and the story makes sense. This film is a classic, and I hereby nominate both female leads for Oscars. see this film ASAP!!

Frozen River is not a glamorous Hollywood film. It's a bleak indie film about struggling to survive.

I found it well written with strong performances by Melissa Leo & Charlie McDermott.

The movie was very moody with some intense scenes and generated a strong emotional response for me. The setting and simple production worked very well with the atmosphere of the story.

And, not to give away anything...the ending is "satisfying" without tying up things impossibly neat or without being too predictable.

I feel the current average rating as of writing this review is not close to being appropriate. Perhaps there is some conspiracy as all of the films listed in the Sundance Dramatic Competition have a huge number of 2 ratings, many more 2's than any other rating. It seems a bit weird to be a coincidence that majority of ratings for these new films would all be 2. See for yourself by clicking on the rating details of each of the films listed at: http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Sundance_Film_Festival/2008

We saw this at Sundance and it was one of our favorites. The story of 2 women, both mothers and down-and-out. Melissa Leo portrays a 40-something mom raising 2 boys and dealing with a gambling-addicted husband. Her goal in life is to buy a double-wide, which to her seems luxurious. Her husband has taken off with their meager savings, however, and the goal is out of reach. Misty Upham plays a Native American mom who is dealing with problems of her own. The two team up to smuggle aliens across a frozen river. The story is exciting and well-told. Ms. Leo is a stand out in her portrayal of Ray, and Misty Upham's performance is very good as well.

"Frozen River" is an example of what great indie film making is all about.Instead of special effects and outrageous plot twists, we are shown real people caught up in some of the significant issues of life.

First let me say that the acting by Melissa Leo, and especially Misty Upham is superb. Both characters grow in stature as the film progresses; what seem to be clichés at the start become powerful archetypes. The direction and cinematography cannot be faulted anywhere. Just well done all the way, without drawing special attention to itself. They let the story take preeminence.

"Frozen River" will challenge your way of seeing cultures, borders, and family. It is the type of movie that stays with you. Don't miss it.

A tight little drama about a poor mother living in upstate New York (Leo) whose louse husband has run off with their savings. She works a crappy job at an All A Dollar and can't get a promotion due to ageism in her workplace. When she goes to look for her husband on the nearby Mohawk reservation, she comes across her car, which was stolen by a Mohawk woman (Upham). The Mohawk woman forces her at gunpoint to go across the frozen river from New York to Canada and bring some illegal immigrants over the border for cash. Though she doesn't want to break the law, the mother realizes this may be her ticket out of the misery she's in. Little does she know that the Mohawk woman has her own legitimate reasons for needing to break the law for some cash.

The story was solid, and the acting was, for the most part, spot on. Leo, Upham, and McDermott as the oldest son are extremely capable leads and give passionate performances. The whole thing felt very believable, and Hunt's writing shines in crafting sympathetic and desperate characters.

The main complaints I had were a few awkward directorial choices (a few shots seemed a little silly) and the medium on which it was shot: I'm a fan of shooting on high definition video, but this looked a bit amateurish. Still, the story and acting were so compelling that I wasn't bothered much. Hunt's writing talents are so strong, all she needs are a good cinematographer and art director to really take things over the edge. I hope to see more from her.

The movie opens on a cold winter day—a few days before Christmas. We first see the face of a crying woman, Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), smoking a cigarette; her teeth are cigarette-stained and her faces is ruddy, almost malnourished. Ray is sitting on the front step of her single-wide trailer. One gets the impression that she is living from day to day. Ray is crying because her husband has just taken off with the all of the money that they had saved for a major payment on a double-wide trailer. He is a compulsive gambler and has taken off in one of their two old cars, leaving her and her two sons without any money.

It soon becomes clear that this is not the first time he has done this and that neither she nor her 15-year-old son, T.J. (Charlie DcDermott), expects him to come back. Yet, she goes to the Bingo parlor in the nearby Mohawk reservation (between New York State and Quebec) to try to find him. With barely enough money to buy gas (and without the $5 entrance fee needed to get into the bingo place), she begs the woman taking the admission fee to let her go into the place to just look for her husband. She is not admitted. When she comes back to her car, she sees a young Indian woman, Lila (Misty Upham) driving off in her husband's car (which had been left abandoned with the keys in the seat).

Ray follows Lila to her small trailer to get her car back. As Ray retrieves her car, Lila tells her that she has a friend who will pay $2,000 for it (more than it is worth---and without papers). Why? He is a smuggler who is always looking for cars with pop up trunks. Ray agrees to have Lila show her to the buyer, while showing Lila her gun and telling her that she is not afraid to use it if she has to.

To get to the car dealer, they have to cross a wide frozen river (the St. Lawrence?—the St. Regis?) that divides the Mohawk reservation and serves as the border between Canada and the US. When they reach Lila's friend on the other side of the international border, he gives them $1,200 as two people are being into the trunk to be taken to the US. Thus begins the reluctant smuggling relationship between Ray and Lila with Lila supplying the contacts and Ray supplying the car with the pop trunk--as well as the fact that Ray is 'white' and police won't suspect her of smuggling across people the border. Lila and Ray make several smuggling 'runs,' with no two coming off the same. However, when the arrangement goes wrong, the consequences affect both women and families in an unexpected way.

The story and characters are well-developed in this screenplay (written and directed by Courtney Hunt), and Melissa Leo's acting is well worth her Oscar nomination. Leo would eventually win an Oscar for her role in The Fighter (2011).

Frozen River has all the makings of a sleeper hit. It has an interesting location presented so clearly you can almost feel the snow leaking into the tips of your shoes, it has characters with unique and interesting personalities that are wonderfully performed and never unrealistic for a split second, and it has a story that is at once completely believable, perfectly paced, and has the feel of real life. That last is the most difficult thing to achieve in the movie, and Frozen River does it better than the vast majority of the other Oscar nominees in any category.

But why is it nominated for Best Original Screenplay? Granted, the story is good and well- presented and performed, but the screen writing itself has a few mistakes that are so childish and careless that I would more expect to see them in a junior high school book report.

The movie starts with a close-up of a woman's face, and it's full of sadness and suffering and betrays a life full of long, hard years. Then the camera pulls back and reveals the movie's setting and soon the characters. It presents a portrait of the typical lower-class American family. A teenage son and a –year-old son being raised by a mother working at the Yankee Dollar store with no father figure in the house. He's on a business trip/has abandoned them, and he's taken the money they needed to buy the double-wide. All we know about him is that he has a gambling problem and probably took off on a bus to Atlantic City.

Melissa Leo gives the best and most important performance in the film. She's Ray Eddy, the "single" mother badly struggling to raise her two children essentially on her own, now that the father has recently disappeared with their savings. Her 15-year-old son is wise beyond his years. He wants to quit school and get a job, believing – probably correctly - that he can earn enough money to help solve their desperate financial problems. But Ray refuses, insisting that he stay in school. The extent of the family's dire financial situation shows how significant it is that she never even considers allowing him to quit school to go to work.

The movie takes place on the border between the U.S. and Canada, at an unknown border- crossing area near an Indian reservation that a few Mohawks have been using as a spot to bring illegals into the country. Ray one day sees her car being driven by someone she doesn't know and pursues her, ultimately getting herself tangled up in a dangerous smuggling operation.

Ray is an honest woman. She's honest and hard-working and law-abiding, the kind of person that most of us can relate to pretty easily. We've all had financial troubles at some point in our lives, and when Ray gets that first few hundred dollars for bringing in some illegal immigrants, it's easier to feel her relief than it is to worry about anything that might result from illegal immigration. We are relieved almost as if the money were solving our own problems rather than someone in a movie. We don't want her to be caught for breaking the law, we want her to bring in a few more car-loads and get that trailer home for her and her son and daughter. This is a sign of outstanding characterization.

Unfortunately, the script is also peppered with foolish mistakes. At one point, Ray sets down two bowls of microwave popcorn for her kids, and her son says indignantly, "I'm not eating this for dinner again." Not a minute later, he and the young daughter are rushed out the door to catch the morning school bus. Do they eat dinner before school or do they go to school after dinner? At another point Ray and Lila, her smuggling partner, are driving into town with a car full of incriminating evidence, and a state trooper pulls into the road behind them and turns on both his lights and his siren. The next scene shows Ray nervously asking Lila, "What if he pulls me over?"

What if? Does she not know what lights and a siren mean? How did this get into the final cut? There is also the smaller but probably more significant issue of the Chinese illegals who at first refuse to get into the car because a woman is driving it. It's not a problem for the story, just a simple but clear example of ignorance about the cultures displayed as illegal immigrants in the movie. There is absolutely no problem about woman drivers here in China. There are female taxi drivers all over this place, and they are generally much better and safer drivers than men.

The best thing that the movie does, however, is that it never once tells us the story, it shows us the story, which is much more difficult and much more effective. The performances by Melissa Leo and Misty Upham as Ray and Lila are so effective that nothing ever needs to be said to illustrate their relationship. Within minutes of their first screen time together, we get the feeling that we've known them each for a long time and are watching to see how they react to each other.

Never once is the movie about anything but personal financial need. It is not about illegal immigration or even smuggling, it just uses those things to illuminate the real meaning, and the setting provides the perfect backdrop to the story, both of which are cold and hard and unforgiving, but equally well-presented. I'm reminded of other similarly cold but brilliant films, like Fargo and Affliction. Recommended!