Frozen River

Frozen River has been given a limited re-release due to Melissa Leo's well deserved nomination for best actress. Since I missed it in its original go round I thought I'd take advantage of the re-release to see it. Ms. Leo plays Ray Eddy, an underemployed mother of two boys, whose husband has abandoned her due to his uncontrollable gambling habit. He's likely off to Atlantic City to gamble away the money they've been saving to upgrade to a bigger trailer. She lives in upstate New York, near the Canadian border and the family is in such dire straits that she's forced to serve popcorn and Tang to her kids for dinner. Somebody please direct this woman to the nearest food stamp office. In the course of looking for her husband she gets involved in a smuggling ring involved in bringing illegal immigrants across the Canadian border through the local Mohawk reservation. In order to minimize getting caught they must drive back and forth between, you guessed it, the frozen river of the title. This film does more than tell a story, as it also portrays the dreariness of the local town, and the difficulty in making a life in an area that offers so little opportunity. It does such a good job that you almost feel that you have to bundle up just to watch it, and I don't mean because the theater doesn't have its heat turned up high enough. At times the film was a little too dreary for my taste, although the story-telling is first rate throughout. Ms. Leo's performance, as noted above, is superb, and she'd likely be a favorite to win the Oscar if she was Charlize Theron or Nicole Kidman playing the role sans makeup. I'd bring an extra sweater to the theater.

Rating - Light 3