Frozen River

Frozen River is a little movie that probably nobody would have seen if it weren’t for the fact that Melissa Leo was nominated for best supporting actress for her role as Ray Eddy, a woman who is struggling to get by while trying to raise two children. To do that she makes a drastic decision to help another down on her luck character, Lila Littlewolf, smuggle people over the border between New York State and Canada by a Mohawk Indian Reservation. It’s a stark, cold splash of water on the face movie. One that you can sense from the outset is going to have a train wreck of an ending. Unpredictably, when the train wreck finally happens, it’s not as bad as you could imagine. For a movie that is about hardscrabble people with hardscrabble lives Frozen River is surprisingly uplifting. And the Oscar nominated Leo is fantastic (I remember loving her on Homicide, Life on the Street). Her son in the movie, Ray Eddy, is appealingly played by Charlie McDermott. And Misty Upham as Lila Littlewolf, is also great, deserving of a nomination as well, I thought.