Dir. Courtney Hunt, US, 2008, 97 mins
Cast: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott
Review by Richard Mellor
The camera pans slowly upwards, introducing its subject to you bit-by-bit: a long, raggedy duffel coat, reddish, tired skin, and finally a female face, neither ugly nor pretty and framed with straggly hair. This turns out to be Ray (Melissa Leo), a 40-something mother of two. Her husband has just left her to go gambling with their savings, you discover. She lives in a shabby trailer in a backwater in New York State , currently covered in sludgy snow and ice, and works in a discount store for a pittance, on which all she can afford is popcorn dinners. Surely this film can only turn out to be a harrowing gloomfest, right?
Wrong. Instead, director Courtney Hunt – this is remarkably her debut – crafts a surprisingly cheery and exciting drama with appreciably few moments of darkness. Her tale features the thorny issue of people-trafficking. Desperate for cash to buy her dream house – a bigger trailer – Ray starts to ferry illegal aliens into the USA from Canada , driving via an autonomous reservation-cum-border zone in which Native American Mohawks live. It pays good money, but involves a perilous journey over the solid ice of the St Lawrence River (hence the title) and a nervy nod to the state trooper car, whose quarry is hidden in the boot of her car.
Ahah - that's immoral, so ethical dilemma solved, you might think. But in this snowy wilderness, things turn out to be not so black and, er, white. Ray's clearly not a bad person. She gives the last of her small change to her sons, desperate for them to have a better life, and she is constantly recording loving voicemails in case the departed husband should call. And yet she's helping illegal aliens enter her country, which can't possibly be right? Rather than answer this complex quandary herself, Hunt refrains from condoning or condemning her lead character, leaving us to make up our own minds and argue on the way home.
Instead she concentrates on depicting the geo-political curiosity that the Mohawks reside in – an unwanted slab of land wherein neither the US nor Canada have jurisdiction. Inside this mini kingdom the Mohawks are free to do as they please but in reality it's an icy prison. Without allegiance or love for either neighbour, particularly the Americans, this native people have no problem with being paid to let would-be immigrants pass across the border line they call home. Theirs is a world long deprived of much sense of identity, so what do a few nameless tourists matter?
This vivid, thorough portrayal is typical of the film. Back in US territory, we learn more about Ray's home life: that the weather forecast includes a “livestock advice” section and that the local nightlife consists of a tawdry bingo hall. Her older son Ricky (James Reilly) is rebellious, cunning and artistic, crafting a bike-powered merry-go-round from for his little bro' and suspicious of mom's newfound wealth. Lila, Ray's accomplice in her criminal pursuits is an American of Mohawk descent and estranged from both her son and mother. Every character is admirably fibrous and the attention to community detail reminds one of John Sayles' brilliant Lone Star , another film set on the American fringes.
The two dramas also share a similar languor. Hunt refuses to hurry to the conclusion of her ‘will she-won't she' saga about Ray's possibly being rumbled, stressing instead the snail's pace of this community's life. There's little music and plenty of long silences: memorably when Ray's car crosses the river, the ice is creaking ominously and Lila offers not a peep. These are engrossing rather than dull scenes, as Ray's house of cards becomes ever more precarious. The story could be aptly classed as a potboiler, but that seems an inappropriate word in this sub-zero setting.
That setting strongly echoes another movie, Fargo , as does the presence of a sassy female lead. There's another likeness too: the two films both boast mighty performances by previously unheralded although experienced actresses – the former in Frances McDormand and now Melissa Leo. Looking a bit like Susan Sarandon and easily as tough as her that actress's Thelma, Leo's gun-toting, fibbing and ever-loving lead in Frozen River is a captivating, beguiling character, as good as she is bad and as weak as she is strong. Her Best Actress nomination at the Oscars was richly deserved. Let's hope she now stays in the limelight she's taken so long to find.
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