Ray Eddy lives in a sagging trailer with two kids who’ve just been
abandoned by their gambler father. She works part-time at a dollar
store where the manager is half her age. She carries a gun, and she
uses it.
It’s the kind of role Charlize Theron and Halle Berry gummed
themselves up for to win Oscars, but veteran character actor and Best
Actress nominee Melissa Leo will no doubt emerge from the awards
empty-handed February 22. Her heart-of-flint performance in Frozen
River is not a stunt, it’s the accumulation of 25 years of quality
work.
Courtney Hunt’s debut finds Ray in an odd-couple situation with Lila
(Misty Upham)—a high-risk, big-pay operation of smuggling people into
the US from Canada across the St. Lawrence. But there’s nothing funny
in this spare, gripping thriller, which takes the myth of the American
dream and literally shoots it in the face: All either woman wants is a
home for her kids, and their daily living—we never see Ray eat or
shower—is more daunting than state troopers or thin ice.
“I’m tired of people stealing from me,” says a frustrated Ray, and
it’s a testament to this tough film that she’s not talking about
illegal immigrants. —Tara Thorne
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2009.