SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Lee Eisenberg Melissa Leo first came to my attention when I saw "The Fighter". She won an Academy Award for her role as the hardened mother, the type who makes you feel as if you're walking on eggshells (she let slip a curse word during her acceptance speech).Two years earlier Leo had played a lead role in "Frozen River". She plays Ray, a woman working a minimum wage job and living in a double-wide mobile home. When her husband disappears with the family's money, Ray joins up with Lila (Misty Upham), a Mohawk woman, and they start transporting illegal immigrants across the US-Canada border.Almost every scene in this movie tenses the viewer up. Whether it's the claustrophobic settings or the risks of something happening during the transports, the movie pulls no punches in its focus on the marginalized sectors of society. The snow and ice emphasize the desperation that drives these women to start breaking the law. I recommend it, as I do every movie in which I've seen Melissa Leo. Too bad about Misty Upham's untimely death in 2014.

Ed-Shullivan Melissa Leo is a very good actress but even she cannot raise this movie above my 5 out of 10 rating. The movie's story line is just too depressing. I fail to glean any family values from this movie even if there are many families who actually live in trailer homes that are falling apart as they sustain their children on popcorn and Tang.Single moms who will try just about anything to survive and keep their families together don't try and smuggle illegal aliens across the frozen tundra for a few hundred dollars and that is IF the really hardened criminals will pay them for the risk these women are taking.If you want to be depressed and feel sorry for two single moms then this movie is for you. As for me, I found the movie ran very slow, lacking in a good movie production and editing, and just overall a boring watch.

johnnyboyz Frozen River unfolds on the cold, biting and rather inhospitable New York State Canadian-American border; a part of the continent in which huge trucks carrying their huge hauls rumble on through past toll booths and under barriers amidst the snow and ice which surrounds the locale for as far as the eye can see; the sort of place neon signs hang, limply, and unlit during the day while homes that look as if they've had little in the way of residency stand idly to the sides of roads. The film, a debut from Tenesse born writer/director Courtney Hunt, is a really pleasing, engrossing little American indie about adults in adult situations facing adult scenarios and dealing with them methodically, maturely and, above all, realistically - we are a long way from the snow-set mainstream posing of something such as Juno and the-like, a film which could only pretend to tackle a rather serious contemporary issue and trivialise such material with a bevy of brash, annoying and wholly unrealistic characters inhabiting a film more interested in entertaining you with its gift of the gab. Indeed, we are mercifully a long way from films such as Secretary and The Squid and the Whale and wholly indebted to Hunt for dragging us away from such films and back to this.We begin on a woman with an agonised expression; she is sitting alone in the coldness of the world she inhabits up against, it seems, not only the climate of her dwelling but the cold makeup of human nature. She smokes; she looks disenchanted; she is Ray Eddy and is played by Melissa Leo. Ray's world is one in which she has little in the way of money. What she dos have is a good-for-nothing gambler of a husband whom is long-gone; two, young sons; a trailer home hanging in the balance on account of the local council with their fees they demand for it and the prospect of not being able to buy a little-'un the diecast set of toy cars they so desperately want for Christmas. The Eddy family are one very much on the edge; a later altercation with a descendant of the Native American's whose land centuries ago this once was, named Lila Littlewolf (Upham), sees Ray put a bullet square into the entrance door to her trailer home, this following some aggravation – we get the feeling six months ago, it may very well have been a warning shot into the air but that sense of her being well past that point of 'warning' has arrived, that here and now at this new level of agitation is the plateau upon which she now resides.The film will come to follow these two and their uneasy alliance, an element to any film which when executed with the sort of bravado and effectiveness as is rather demonstrated here, can make for some fascinating viewing. Lila, a mere bingo house worker patrolling the floors and the player's little-to-no bingo playing activity, the film coming to reveal lives an equally dishevelled lifestyle in rather humble shack-like conditions; somebody whom is additionally devoid of a husband but very much with that out-casted, hermit-like existence similar to that of Ray. Their duty, as perpetrated by some local indigenous people whom Lila knows, is to smuggle people across the aforementioned border with what the instigators claim is within legality but was always ambiguous in its criminality, for large amounts of money; the zone through which they must journey is the titular frozen river, a stretch of icy nothingness doubling up as a moral grey zone neatly capturing the nature of Ray and Lila's activities; a zone devoid of most things and set well away from the confines of whatever passes for civilisation. Their first job, to transport an apparently untrustworthy young foreign man from place to place, sees Ray handed the gentleman's shoes before they all drive off on account it will "stop him from running away", in what is a neat, authentic touch systematically doing lots whilst doing very little.The film itself draws us into proceedings even more; the overbearing item to proceedings, or what's at stake, the fact this down-and-out family have the loss of their home on the line, something which Ray's husband practically gave away on account of his gambling habit. The film additionally makes use of Ray's infant son and his desperate pleas for a set of small, metallic cars with which he can play; Frozen River utilising such a notion or potential event without really exploiting such a child-like and innocent desire whilst keeping us wholly aware that if its lead does indeed get away with what it is she's doing, these two realities will be able to come to fruition. The film manages to have us will the lead on without ever really endorsing any criminal activity, instead, and by placing its characters into some rather harrowing situations born out of Ray's decision to engage in people trafficking, the film builds up enough of an unglamorous edge to proceedings to see it by. The culmination, of which, is an embittered and remarkably well played drama going on to cover some territory in the deftest and most capable of manners.

namashi_1 Courtney Hunt's 'Frozen River' caters to a niche audience, but for it's tiny section of buffs, it comes out a delight. Also, Melissa Leo packs in a winning performance, that makes this difficult story even more intriguing.'Frozen River' focuses on two working-class women who smuggle illegal immigrants in the trunk of a car from Canada to the U.S in order to make ends meet.'Frozen River' is a disturbing story, and Courtney Hunt's writing & direction never runs away from that fact. The journey of these 2 women, is dark, disturbing & moving. But, the culmination is half-baked. Though not bad, it lacks a solid punch, which this story promises to deliver.Acting wise, Melissa Leo is very convincing. She makes you feel the pain & desperation in her, in each and every frame. Misty Upham is another topper as the other woman. She particularly stands out in the penultimate moments. Charlie McDermott is sincere. Michael O'Keefe leaves a mark. Others lend decent support.On the whole, 'Frozen River' has and will be loved by it's audience, it tries to talk to. In that context & understanding, this is a story worth watching.