When she gets up one morning just before Christmas, Ray discovers that she is a single mother. Her husband, a gambling addict and Mohican Indian, has run off with the down-payment on their new mobile home. Ray sends the children to school and says that she is not even going to go and look for her husband. But she does anyway. In the Mohican reservation, she finds his car just as it’s being stolen by the Mohican Lila Littlewolf, but she doesn’t find her husband. Ray is all on her own and a new mobile home seems impossibly distant. A strange twist of fate is that Lila, the car thief, offers a solution. Ray and Lila can smuggle illegal immigrants over the river between Canada and the United States. The loopholes in the law of the reservation are big enough for that, even though it’s not without risk. Frozen River is effective thanks to its grim social realism, but the power of the film is in the casting of the actress Melissa Leo, who plays a stubborn woman branded by life. When she shoots a hole in Littlewolf’s mobile home, she’s just as convincing as when she serves popcorn for breakfast. The film won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. (GjZ)
Film details
Country of production
USA
Year
2008
Festival edition
IFFR 2009
Length
97'
Medium/Format
35mm
Language
English
Premiere status
None
Director
Courtney Hunt
Producer
Heather Rae, Chip Hourihan, Molly Conners
Cinematography
Reed Morano
Screenplay
Courtney Hunt
Production design
Inbal Weinberg
Production company
Cohen Media Group, Frozen River Pictures, Harwood Hunt Productions, Off Hollywood Pictures