Living on the edge of Canada, dire poverty, and doom

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.

Frozen River, 97 mins., debuted at Sundance 18 January 2008, showing in at least 14 other US and international festivals. Two Oscar nominations, Best Actor (Leo) and Best Writing (Hunt); many other awards and nominations. US theatrical release 5 September 2008.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.