Cold, Hard Truths — ‘Frozen River’ Crosses Familiar Themes to Reach New Destination
By John Beifuss
Something that is real ought to be more familiar than something that is unreal, but at the movies, the opposite is true. A tale about a superbeing from outer space may seem old hat, while a story about working-class Americans may be novel.
Written and directed by native Memphian Courtney Hunt, “Frozen River” takes us to an actual location, introduces us to a pair of convincing characters and immerses us in a harsh reality – and in the process shows us people, a place and a particular circumstance that we never have seen before onscreen.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in drama at this year’s Sundance Film Festival , “Frozen River” is the rare film that acknowledges that the often humiliating and potentially soul-crushing pursuit of money – not
wealth, but simply the means to survive and support a family – is the activity that dominates the waking hours of perhaps a majority of American lives.
The collision of economic uncertainty and maternal love is what motivates Hunt’s characters and drives her story. As Stephen Holden accurately noted in The New York Times, the movie “evokes a perfect storm of present-day woes: illegal immigration, ethnic tension, depressed real estate, high gas prices and dire poverty.”
Melissa Leo stars as Ray Eddy, a tough yet scared middle-aged mother who shares a trailer home in snowy upstate New York with her two sons, troubled Troy Junior (Charlie McDermott), 15, and Ricky (James Reilly), a still lovable 5-year-old.
The movie opens just days before Christmas, on the subfreezing morning when Ray learns that her husband has left her, taking the money she had saved to buy the family a new three-bedroom “double- wide.” As a result, Ray needs $4,372 fast, or she will lose her $1,500 deposit on the trailer home.
This situation – a mother beset by cruel winter weather and coldhearted moneylenders just before Christmas – could be pulled from a Victorian melodrama; later, when Ray crosses the frozen river of the title, one may think of the famous scene of Liza crossing the ice floes in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (even if Liza was on foot, and not driving a Dodge Spirit).
Hunt’s story is so specific to its cultural and geographic setting, however, that its evocation of antique story tropes is bracing rather than hackneyed: It tells us that Ray is an initiate in an ancient, sad sisterhood of desperate heroines.
Even so, Ray is a type of woman we almost never see in the movies, at least in a starring role. She is unglamorous and almost postsexual – in any case, she no longer has sex appeal as a weapon. Typically, when actresses portray “unattractive” women, they haven’t rejected vanity but have found pride in a new type of appearance (think Charlize Theron in “Monster”).
But Leo convinces us she has all but moved past such concerns (even if Ray is obviously angry about her loss of status). Her face is worn, her hands and even her feet look rugged. She knows how to handle a gun, and she moves with purpose. According to Hunt, she and Leo watched John Wayne movies for inspiration, and Leo’s flinty performance does suggest the silent strength and grim, hard-won wisdom evoked by “The Duke” in his best performances. Even her character’s names – Ray Eddy – are masculine.
Ray works as a cashier at the Yankee One Dollar store (an actual business, with a name so suited to the story that viewers may think Hunt made it up). But her meager paycheck is barely enough to allow her to keep possession of her rent-to-own television or to keep her children in popcorn and Tang (this near-starvation level meal is one of the few details that seems contrived for effect rather than pulled from life).
After tracking her vanished husband to an Indian bingo parlor, Ray meets Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a young Mohawk widow with a chip on her shoulder who lives in a tiny trailer and makes money smuggling illegal immigrants through Mohawk territory, from Canada to New York.
The trunk of Ray’s Dodge Spirit is a perfect fit for human cargo, so Ray – in dire need of money – reluctantly agrees to help Lila make a run, and then another. The women’s combative partnership provides the movie with its deadpan emotional center, and Lila quickly proves to be as distinctive a character as Ray.
The nighttime smuggling scenes are somewhat nerve-wracking, as Ray and Lila drive across the frozen waterway – supposedly, the St. Lawrence River – that links the two countries. Quentin Tarantino, head of the Sundance jury that gave its top award to “Frozen River,” marveled that Hunt’s “completely naturalistic movie” became “one of the most exciting thrillers I’m going to see this year.”
However, Hunt doesn’t milk the suspense. She shoots even these scenes in the straightforward manner of the rest of her movie, in which simple, informative compositions that emphasize the flatness of the horizon, the trailer, the ice and Ray’s prospects are augmented by handheld closeups for more immediate emotional impact.
Hunt’s visuals may be economical, but the movie’s details are rich. We see the fake log-cabin walls of the Pioneer Motel, and visit the Wolfmart gas station – names that exploit the romantic heritage of the North Country for mundane commercial reasons.
The dialogue is just as revealing and specific, educating us on the relationship between the Mohawk and the “whites” and telling us about the economic hardship of the region without lecturing.
At the Wolfmart, Ray empties her pockets and buys $7.74 in gas – every penny counts in “Frozen River,” both for Ray and for Hunt, who hardly wastes a frame of film in her remarkable debut.
– John Beifuss: 529-2394
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movie review
‘Frozen River’
Rated R for profanity.
Three 1/2 stars
Originally published by John Beifuss beifuss@commercialappeal.com .
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