Frozen River Review

First time Director Courtney Hunt very deftly captures the desperate circumstances of two struggling single mothers, in the harsh, gut wrenching, critically acclaimed, 2008 Independent film Frozen River. In the process, Hunt also touches on some sensitive issues in the small, bleak, upstate New York town, including illegal immigration, race relations, and economic hardship.

Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) has just been deserted by her deadbeat husband, Troy, a gambling addict, two day before Christmas. Barely eeking out a living working part-time at the Yankee Dollar store in a small town near the Canadian border, Ray is struggling to come up with the down payment on a nice, new, double wide trailer with a whirlpool bath.

When Ray goes searching for Troy at a bingo parlor on the Mohawk reservation, she finds his car in the possession of Lila Littlewolf, (Misty Upton) a stoic Mohawk widow who earns extra money smuggling illegal immigrants over the Canadian border, to help support her young son, currently living with her in-laws. Despite their differences, and driven to desperate measures, Ray and Lila team up to in a small time smuggling operation, transporting illegal immigrant across the rough terrain and the frozen Hudson River, to New York.

This  intense, small budget, Independent film, literally wreaks with authenticity, as the camera captures every line and wrinkle in Ray's troubled face, and Lila's unspoken bitterness over the loss her young son.The lead acting is superb, as both Melissa Leo and Misty Upton convey the smoldering, below-the-surface, emotions of their complex characters. The frigid, barren, unforgiving landscape of upstate New York is a character within inself, as the two women struggle against racial prejudice, economic blight, and a harsh legal system, along with the perilous frozen river; that symbolizes their passage to a better life.

Although at times, difficult to watch, I highly recommend Frozen River, especially for fans of tough, hard-hitting, Independent films. It is a realistic, though provoking, film about a harsh slice of Americana, that few people experience first hand.