Fighting the
elements

Two single moms struggle for
survival in Frozen River

by MATTHEW HAYS

For all of the times people have lamented the clichés of Sundance film-fest award winners, there are times that the grand jury prize actually goes to something worthwhile. Courtney Hunt’s directorial debut, Frozen River, would be one of those times. Quentin Tarantino, who announced the award last January, praised the film and filmmaker at the Utah event.

For good reason. Frozen River starts out slowly, showing us the grizzled, harsh existence of one single mom (Melissa Leo, in a mind-bendingly good performance) as she attempts to track down her deadbeat, gambling-addict hubby. She’s broke, and he’s taken off with (yet) more money to squander at whatever seedy gambling joint he can. When a native woman (Misty Upham) tries to steal Leo’s husband’s car, there is a clash, but the two soon bond as they come to understand each other and figure out a way to make some desperately-needed coin.

Living near the Quebec-New York border has its advantages, at least for close-to-starving single moms. Due to the native reserve that stretches across the U.S.-Canada divide, Upham and Leo can make quick cash by smuggling illegals from Canada to the U.S. It’s anguish-inducing, horrid, demeaning and sordid work—and the people running the smuggling operations are about as unsavoury as you can imagine. But Frozen River shows us the truly unhappy choices people put into this kind of financial trap are faced with.

Hunt’s screenplay is mercifully short on any kind of excess sentimentality. It’s a no-frills directing style, one that keeps us grounded. There’s no need for trickery—Hunt understands that her characters and the dilemma that binds them are good enough to draw us in, and keep us there.

Thanks to Barack and Hillary, there’s been plenty of discussion of race and gender in the media this year. But thoughtful meditations on class difference are rarely heard, cinema being no exception. When they do emerge, they’re usually utterly dreadful, like Maid in Manhattan. Frozen River is a welcome relief, an intuitive film about quiet desperation and the extremes people will go to to survive.

Frozen River opens
this Friday, August 22

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