'Frozen River': Tale of alien-smuggling mother delivers cold truths
In “Frozen River,” popcorn and Tang is served for dinner and the working poor dream of double-wide trailers.
The crushing poverty found in this upstate New York border town — near Quebec, marked by trailers and a smattering of gas stations, discount stores and a bingo parlor — permeates “Frozen River” no less than the unrelenting gray skies, frigid wintry landscape and sheet of ice covering the St. Lawrence River.
FROZEN RIVER
Three and a half stars
STARRING: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham and Charlie
McDermott DIRECTOR: Courtney Hunt
RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes
RATING: R for language and violence.
THE LOWDOWN: A down-on-her-luck mother of two gets involved in smuggling illegal aliens across the New York-Canadian border.
It’s what leads hardscrabbled Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), a resourceful mother with steely determination and a tough-as-nails attitude, to smuggle illegal aliens across Mohawk territory. It’s a treacherous and desperate bid to escape the rusted and dilapidated trailer the family calls home and bring them a sense of normalcy.
Things at this point have hit rock bottom in the Eddy household. The double-wide, with a sales brochure promising to “Live the Dream,” has been delivered twice and sent back for nonpayment. Ray is stuck in her part-time job at Yankee One Dollar Store, reduced to counting pennies while her husband, who is never seen, has split with the trailer’s down payment on a likely gambling binge.
So when an opportunity presents itself after Ray stumbles upon the smuggling of illegal immigrants into Canada, she takes it. It’s lucrative and dangerous, but it’s her only option to quickly raise the money for that trailer and a better life for 15-year-old T. J. (Charlie McDermott) and 5-year-old Ricky (James Reilly).
To smuggle people across the border, Ray must traverse the frozen St. Lawrence in the dead of night with experienced smuggler Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a Mohawk Indian, and deal with unsavory smugglers. She must also elude the watchful eye of state troopers while not arousing the suspicions of perceptive T. J., who has a difficult relationship with his mother and blames her for his father’s absence.
The stress is amplified by the looming threat of the rent-to-buy television being repossessed and the coming of Christmas without money for toys.
The mistrust embedded in Ray and Lila’s relationship by necessity is reflective of the strained relations between the area’s white working class and the Mohawks.
Leo’s pitch-perfect performance, like the writing and direction from Courtney Hunt in her first feature film, rings true. Much less so is Upham’s wooden Lila.
Adding to the grim economic outlook is the latter-day horror of human smuggling. Here, Chinese and Pakistanis are subject to cruelty and long-term servitude at the mercy of smugglers. Neither Ray nor Lila want to know about their stories, and Ray even tosses a Pakistani’s duffel bag out the window fearing it contains a bomb.
Only little Ricky seems to bring unadulterated joy into the film’s dismal setting. Double-wide dreams, indeed.•
