Rated: R [See Full Rating]
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Theatrical Release: Aug 1, 2008 Limited
Box Office: $812,557
Synopsis: Courtney Hunt's feature directorial debut FROZEN RIVER is a powerfully unflinching tale of two women, who, driven by economic hardship, form an unlikely partnership smuggling illegal immigrants across the Canadian border. Melissa Leo turns in a gritty performance as Ray, a struggling... [More]
Genre: Dramas
While it seems to revolve around Leo's life, actions and character, it is more broadly a portrait of motherhood, family and sorority forged by a suffering that seems uniquely and unfairly determined by gender and class.
There's something peculiarly appealing about this independently produced feature, which is equal parts thriller and drama.
The rare film that acknowledges that the often humiliating pursuit of money -- not wealth, but the means to survive and support a family -- is the activity that dominates the waking hours of perhaps a majority of American lives.
It moves and it heals, finding hints of redemption in the jagged face of life.
The miracle of filmmaker Courtney Hunt's tense, carefully understated debut is that it is made better by its few flights of fancy.
Frozen River isn't just a good movie made by a woman; it's a good movie on anyone's terms, one of the year's best. To find hope beneath this ice, in this ugly terrain, is to dream big.
You shouldn't want to cheer when a criminal uses dirty money to save the family flat-screen from repo.
This is a sharp, emotionally engaging drama, and a powerful debut from a new filmmaker.
The stories of women are so disparaged -- or worse, ignored -- in our culture unless they have something to do with pleasing men, but here's one that demands to be seen.
Made with uncommon skill and assurance, the film never succumbs to rank sentimentality, but it manages to get at the nuances of human relationships.
Top Critic
Frozen River, a story of abject desperation, feels so real and immediate that it plays almost like a documentary.
We quickly sense that the director of this film has unusual perception, and that whatever the story and performances turn out to be, she will make the most of them.
Hunt has achieved a remarkable work with Frozen River, that is both a poignant and exquisitely life-affirming sisterhood rite of passage, and a rare glimpse into the overwhelmed but enduring spirit of the Mohawk Nation.
Frozen River does what too many independent American movies only pretend to do: Takes you to an unnoticed corner of our country and shows what it's like to actually live there.
Frozen River is both a thriller and a complicated study of poverty and racism, and rarely has a movie played out against such a desolate background.
An impressive first feature by writer/director Courtney Hunt, Frozen River boasts considerable suspense-movie tension and a compelling emotional journey for its foreground characters.
All of the people in Frozen River, a character study that moves like a thriller, screw things up regularly, but the movie helps us understand the bad choices they make.
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