Frozen River [DVD] [2008]

You have to see this film - perfect antidote to Hollywood pap. It really takes you there, in a way that even otherwise top films like Slumdog Millionaire don't quite manage. The suspense as she attempts one last run to make the final payment on her mobile home is terrific. And great performances by the kids, particularly TJ. My only quibble is a technical one - the night scenes are so dark, it's hard to make out what's going on. But a great human story that propels you to a brilliant climax.

Drama derived from characters in desperate situations are not exactly unusual but very rarely are they done as well as Frozen River. Courtney Hunt who writes and directs ( and also earned an academy nod for the Screenplay ) gave the film the tagline "Desperation knows no borders." which plays obviously on the characters state of affairs but also neatly ties in with a major part of the plot.
Frozen River is set in a small town on the New York/Canadian border. Within this town is a Mohawk Indian reservation that straddles the St. Lawrence River and extends into Canada. You can enter the reservation in America, drive through it, cross the titular frozen river, drive through the other half of the reservation, and exit in Canada -- and thus circumvent the normal border-crossing regulations. Local cops keep a vigilant eye just outside the reservation's boundaries, but as long as you don't give them any reason to be suspicious they have no reason to stop you and check your trunk/boot to see if you've smuggled something across the border.
That being pertinent because Ray ( Melissa Leo ) a struggling mother of two kids with a part time job in a thrift shop has been left in the lurch by her gambling addicted husband who has run off with the money they had saved in order to buy a new more luxurious condo , replacing the crappy one they currently exist in. Then she meets Lila (Misty Upham), a young Mohawk woman who lives in an even smaller trailer on the reservation . Lila has procured the car left by Rays runaway husband but she knows how to earn money transporting immigrants across the border from Canada to the United States, hiding them in a car's trunk and taking advantage of the reservation's abnormal geography. Ray is a good foil , frantic for money also but being a white woman, she's less likely to be stopped by the local police. It's an easy payday , all you got to do is drive across the frozen river and the pay beats thrift shop wages hands down . Until of course it all goes awry and the arrangement becomes problematic to say the least .
Frozen River is a brilliantly acted (Melissa Leo is sensational and deservedly earned an Oscar nomination too ) subtly paced, tautly scripted and at times truly suspenseful film that touches on empathy , hopelessness and survival by sheer bloody-mindedness. It revels in an asceticism and social realism a million miles away from most of the film product of the country whose quiet desperation it represents.
It also gives the viewer a sliver of hope for the conclusion .For a good deal of it,s running time Frozen River is a pragmatic rather cold hearted film but by the final third a rather reticent thaw sets in. No sure it is the sort of film anybody would want to watch repeatedly but for a one time slice of American indie cinema Frozen River is hard to beat.

"Frozen River" is a fascinating tale about people smuggling on the US-Canadian border that has a spark of originality rarely seen these days in the cinema. Ray is a phlegmatic mother,abandoned by her gambler husband a week before Christmas. Desperately trying to make the payments for her family's new home , she hooks up with a Mohawk Indian woman who introduces her to the lucrative but dangerous world of human trafficking. The pair cross the eponymous "Frozen River" into Canada to collect their cargo and the lure of easy money entices them into making it a regular occurrence. However can they keep one step ahead of the law on both sides of the border and avoid capture ? This film is well acted and intriguing ,portraying ordinary people struggling to make ends meet .It is well worth watching.